St. Proclus of Constantinople
from Sermon 9, for Palm Sunday (PG 65, 772)
“Blessed is he who comes, he, our King!”
This day, my beloved, is a day of the greatest importance. It asks from us great desire, overwhelming eagerness, a brisk going forward to stand awaiting the heavenly King. Paul, messenger of the Good News, has told us: “The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all” (Phil 4,5-6)…
Let us then light the lamps of our faith: like the five wise virgins (Mt 25,1f.) let us fill them with the oil of compassion towards the poor; let us be wide awake to welcome Christ with palms of righteousness in our hands. Let us kiss him, pouring over him Mary’s perfume (Jn 12,3).
Hear the resurrection song: may our voices be raised in a manner worthy of the divine majesty and let us, together with the people, shout aloud the cry that breaks out from the crowd: “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel”. How good it is to say: “He who comes”, for he comes unceasingly and never fails us: “The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth” (Ps 145[144],18). “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
This gentle King stands at our door, bringing peace. He who is enthroned on the cherubim in heaven is seated on the foal of an ass here below. Let us make ready the houses of our souls, sweeping away the cobwebs of brotherly misunderstandings, and let the dust of malicious gossip not be found amongst us. Let us spread abroad the waves of our love and pacify all those clashes that arouse our animosity and let then us sow flowers of piety at the door of our lips. Let us then put forth with the people the cry that stirs the crowd: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”
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William of St.-Thierry
from Meditations, 5, 8-9
“The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil”
Since my childhood I have never ceased to sin, and you have never ceased to work my good… But turn your judgment into mercy, Lord, and condemn sin by sin… But first, Lord, let the fire of your perfect love inflame my heart, let its great heat sweat and cook out of me all the poison of sin; let it search out and wash away with the tears of my eyes all that defiles my conscience. May your cross drive from me all the evil that I have contracted through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, through the long-continued rusting of my negligence. Lord, anyone who likes may hear me thus confessing, and may laugh at me! Anyone may see me lying with the sinful woman at your mercy’s feet, washing them with the tears of my heart and anointing them with the perfume of heartfelt devotion! (Lk 7,38).
Let me give my whole substance (whatever that amounts to!) alike in body and soul, to buy the perfume that you will accept, that I may pour it out upon your head, whose head is God, and on your feet, whose lower part is our humble nature. Let the Pharisee murmur, but do you have mercy on me, O my God! Let the thief with his money-bag gnash his teeth at me if he likes; as long as you are pleased with me, I care very little who may be displeased.
O my heart’s love, may I anoint you daily, ceaselessly, for, when I am anointing you, I anoint myself… Grant, Lord, that I may faithfully devote to you all that I have, all that I know, all that I am, and all that I can do; let me keep nothing for myself! I stand to be judged by you, and by no man; I lie at your mercy’s feet, and there I will lie and lament, until you make me hear your blessed voice, the judgment of your lips, the declaration of your righteousness which is mine too: “Her many sins are forgiven, for she loved much” (Lk7,47).
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St. Bernard
from Sermon 1 for the First Sunday of November
“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM”
Isaiah the prophet describes an exalted vision for us: “I saw the Lord seated on a throne” (Is 6,1). What a wonderful sight, my brethren! Happy the eyes that saw it! Who would not want with all their heart to behold the splendor of so great a glory?… Yet here I am listening to that same prophet give us an account of a very different vision of the same Lord: “We saw him; he had no beauty, no splendor: we took him for a leper” (Is 53,2f. Vg.)…
And so, if you desire to see Jesus in his glory, try first of all to contemplate him in his humiliation. Begin by gazing on the serpent raised up in the desert (cf. Jn 3,14)if you wish to see the King seated on his throne. Let the first vision fill you with humility so that the second may raise you from your humiliation. Let the former reprove and heal your pride before the latter fulfils and satisfies your desire. Do you see the Lord “emptied”? (Phil 2,7). Do not let this vision leave you untouched or you will not be able to behold him later on in the glory of his exaltation without anxiety.
“You will be like him”, indeed, when you see him “as he is” (1Jn 3,2); so be like him now as you see what he became for your sake. If you do not refuse to become like him in his humiliation, he will certainly give you the likeness of his glory in return. He will never allow someone who has shared his Passion to be excluded from communion in his glory. So little does he refuse to admit someone who has shared his Passion into the Kingdom with him that the thief found himself in paradise that very day with him because he confessed him on the cross (Lk 23,42)… Yes indeed, “if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him” (Rom 8,17).
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St. Bernadine of Siena
from Sermon on St. Joseph (OC 7, 16. 27-50)
St. Joseph, faithful guardian of the mysteries of our salvation
When the divine goodness chooses someone to receive a special grace, it gives him all the charisms he needs, which greatly increases his spiritual beauty. This is wholly confirmed in the case of St. Joseph, legal father of our Lord Jesus Christ and rightful husband of she who is Queen of the world and Sovereign of angels. The eternal Father chose him to be provider and faithful guardian to his chiefest treasures, namely his Son and his bride – a function he faithfully fulfilled. That is why the Lord said: “Good and faithful servant, come, share your master’s joy” (Mt 25,21).
If you compare Joseph with all the rest of Christ’s Church, is he not the one who has been specially chosen, through whom Christ came into the world in regular and respectable fashion? So if the whole of holy Church is indebted to the Virgin Mary because it was she who enabled it to welcome Christ, after her it is to St. Joseph that it owes a recognition and honor without compare. Indeed, it is he who brings the Old Testament to an end; it is in him that the dignity of patriarchs and prophets receives its promised fruit. He alone possessed in reality what divine goodness had promised to them. Nor indeed should we doubt that the closeness and respect Christ showed to Joseph during his earthly life, as a son to his father, were ever denied in heaven, rather, he enriched and completed them. So, with reason, the Lord adds: “Enter into your master’s joy”.
Blessed Joseph, remember us; intercede with the help of your prayers to your adopted Son; and may you likewise make the blessed Virgin, your spouse, to be favourable towards us, for she is the mother of him who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns world without end.
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Origen
from Treatise on First Principles, Bk. 2, chap. 6,2 (PG 11, 210-211)
“No one laid hands on him”
In Christ we encounter such human characteristics that they have nothing to distinguish them from the weakness common to us mortals. At the same time we encounter characteristics so divine that they can only be appropriate to the sovereign and ineffable divine nature. Too small to comprehend this, the human mind is so dumbfounded that it does not know what to take its stand on nor which path to follow. Is it aware of God in Christ? Yet it sees him die. Does it take him to be a man? But see him coming back from the dead with the prize of his victory, having destroyed the reign of death.
In the same way our contemplation needs to be practised with such reverence and fear that, in the same Jesus, it considers the truth of the two natures, avoiding attributing to the divine essence those things that are nor worthy of it or do not belong to it, but also avoiding seeing only an illusory appearance in historical events.
In truth, causing such things as these to be heard by human ears, trying to express them in words considerably surpasses our ability, talent and language. I even think it surpasses the capability of the apostles. More still, the explanation of this mystery probably transcends the entire order of angelic powers.
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St. Augustine
from Sermons on St John’s Gospel, no. 34
The light of the world
It would seem to me that the Lord’s words: “I am the light of the world” are clear enough for those with eyes that enable them to have a share in that light. But those who only have bodily eyes are astonished to hear it said by our Lord Jesus Christ: “I am the light of the world.” There may even be those who say: “Would Christ be the sun that determines the day by its rising and setting?”…
No, Christ is not that. The Lord is not the created sun but him by whom the sun was created. For “all things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be” (Jn 1,3). Therefore he is the light who created the light we see. Let us love this light, understand it, desire it, that led by it we may in due course attain it and may live in it so as never to die…
So you see, my brethren, you see, if you have eyes that see spiritual things, what kind of light this is of which the Lord says: “Whoever follows me does not walk in darkness.” Follow that sun and let us see whether or not you walk in darkness. Behold how he arises and comes towards you. Following his course he makes his way westwards; but you on your part, must walk towards the rising sun, the Christ.
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The Letter to Diognetus
from Ch. 9
“They tried all the more to kill him, because… he also called God his own father”
God left us to live for the meanwhile as we pleased, giving free rein to our unruly instincts and being at the mercy of sensuality and lust. This was not because he took any pleasure in those sins of ours; all he was doing was to put up with them. It was not that he was sanctioning that former era of lawlessness; rather, he was preparing this present era of righteousness, to the intent that we, who in those days had been proved by our own works unworthy to achieve life, might in these days be made worthy of it by the goodness of God…
In that hour, instead of hating us and rejecting us… he bore with us, and in pity he took our sins upon himself and gave his own Son as a ransom for us – the Holy for the wicked, the Sinless for sinners, “the Just for the unjust” (1Pt 3,18), the Incorrupt for the corrupt, the Immortal for the mortal. For was there, indeed, anything except his righteousness that could have availed to cover our sins?
In whom could we… have been made holy, but in the Son of God alone? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable working! O benefits unhoped for! that the wickedness of multitudes should thus be hidden in the One holy, and the holiness of One should sanctify the countless wicked! In times past he convinced us that our human nature by itself lacked the power of attaining to life; today, he reveals to us a Savior who has power to save even the powerless. The purpose behind both these acts is that we should believe in his goodness and should look on him as our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counsellor, Healer, Wisdom. Light, Honor, Glory, Power and Life.
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John Tauler
from Sermon 8
“Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Our Lord came to the pool of Bethezda. There he found a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years and said to him: “Do you want to be well?”… Children, take good note that this sick man had been there for a very long time, for years. This man was destined to serve God’s glory, not death (Jn 11,4). Oh, if only we would try hard to understand, in a spirit of real patience, the profound teaching contained in the fact that this sick man had waited thirty-eight years for God to heal him and tell him to walk!
This is spoken to people who, having scarcely begun to live a slightly retired life and not seeing themselves at once produce the great results they expected, believe it all to be wasted and complain about God as though he were treating them unjustly. How few there are who possess the noble virtue of being able to abandon and surrender themselves, who accept themselves for what they are and bear their infirmities, handicaps and temptations until the Lord himself cures them… What power and self-control would be granted to such a one! To him would it truly be said: “Stand up! You have no right to be lying there any more; you should be setting out victoriously from every bondage, be unbound and walk in all freedom. You will carry your bed – that is to say, whatever was formerly carrying you, you must now take up and carry in power and strength.” Whoever the Lord himself delivers would be delivered indeed; he would walk rejoicing and, after waiting so long, would win a wonderful freedom of which they are deprived who imagine they can deliver themselves or break their bonds before the time.
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Baldwin of Ford
from Tractate 6, on Heb. 4:12
“The man believed what Jesus said to him”
“The word of God is living and effective, more piercing than any two-edged sword” (Heb 4,12). What greatness of power, what wealth of wisdom in the Word of God is shown by these words of the Apostle to those that seek Christ, who is himself the word, the power, and the wisdom of God. In the beginning, this word was with God, coeternal with him; in his time he was revealed to the prophets, proclaimed by them, and received humbly in the faith of his believing people. We have, therefore, the word in the Father, the word in the mouth, and the word in the heart. The word in the mouth is the expression of the word that is in the Father and also the expression of the word that is in the heart of man. The word in the heart of man is either the understanding of the word or faith in the word or the love of the word when the word is either understood or believed or loved. When these three are united in one heart so that the word of God is at one and the same time understood, believed and loved, then Christ, who is the word of the Father… dwells in the heart by faith. And with wonderful condescension he who is God in the heart of the Father descends even to the heart of men…
This Word of God… is living, and the Father granted to him that he should have life in himself as the Father has life in himself (Jn 5,26). On this account he is not only living, but life; as he says of himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14,6).Because he is life, he lives in such a way that he is able to give life, for “as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will” (Jn 5,21).
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St. Peter Chrysologus
from Homily on Forgiveness, 2, 3
“I shall get up and go to my father”
If we do not care for this young man’s conduct, his departure horrifies us. Don’t let us ever abandon such a father! Simply the sight of the father causes sin to flee, banishes our faults, does away with all bad behavior and temptation. Yet if we have gone away, if we have wasted all our father’s inheritance in a life of debauchery, if we should happen to have committed some fault or misdeed or fallen into the mire of irreligiousness and complete dissipation: let us rise up for good and all and return to this best of fathers, summoned by such a beautiful example.
“When the father saw him he ran to embrace him and covered him with kisses.” I ask you: where is there room for despair here? What pretext for excuse? What false reason for fear? Only, perhaps, if we dread meeting the father, if we are afraid of his kisses and embrace; only if we think that the father, when he takes his child by the hand, draws him to his breast and folds his arms around him, wants to seize the opportunity to make good his loss instead of welcoming in order to forgive.
Such a thought, however, that destroys life and is contrary to our salvation, is fully overcome, wholly destroyed by what follows: “The father said to his servants: ‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.'” When we have heard that, can we delay any longer? What more could we ask for to return to the father?
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St. Cyprian
from The Lord’s Prayer, 4, 6
“The tax collector… would not even raise his eyes to heaven”
Let those who pray have words and petitions governed by restraint and possessing a quiet modesty. Let us bear in mind that we stand in the sight of God. We must be pleasing in the sight of God both in posture and the measured tone of our voices and not break out into clamorous noise. It befits the modest to pray moderately.
In his teaching the Lord bids us pray apart, in solitary and retired places (Mt 14,23; 6,6) and even in our bed-chambers, because it is more befitting our faith to realize that God is present everywhere , that he hears and sees all, and that by the plenitude of his majesty he penetrates hidden and secret places, too. As it is written: “I am a God near at hand and not a God far off. Can a man hide in secret without my seeing him? Do I not fill both heaven and earth?” (cf. Jer 23,23-24).
Let the person who prays not ignore this: how the publican prayed with the Pharisee in the Temple. Not by impudently lifting his eyes to heaven nor by insolently raising his hands, but striking his breast and testifying to the sins hidden within him, he implored the help of divine mercy. And although the Pharisee was pleased with himself, it was this man, rather, who deserved to be accounted upright. For he placed the hope of salvation not in confidence in his own innocence, for no one is innocent, but he confessed his sins and prayed humbly. And he who forgives the humble, heard him as he prayed.
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St. Hilary
from Commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel, 4, 14-15 (PL 9, 936-937 [cf SC 254, p. 135])
Christ is the fulfilment of Scripture
“I have not come to abolish, but to fulfil.” The strength and power of these words of the Son of God enclose a profound mystery.
For the Law prescribed works, but it directed all those works towards faith in realities that would be made manifest in Christ: for the Savior’s teaching and Passion are the great and mysterious design of the Father’s will. Under the veil of its inspired words, the Law made known the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, his incarnation, Passion and resurrection. The prophets, no less than the apostles, teach us repeatedly that the mystery of Christ had been prepared from all eternity to be revealed in our own times…
Christ did not want us to think that his own works comprised anything other than the Law’s demands. That is why he himself insisted: “I have not come to abolish, but to fulfil.” Heaven and earth… will disappear but not the least commandment of the Law, for all the Law and the prophets find their fulfilment in Christ. At the time of his Passion… he declared: “It is finished” (Jn 19,30). And at that very moment every word of the prophets was confirmed.
For this reason Christ declares that not even the least of God’s commandments can be cancelled without offending God… Nothing can be more insignificant than the smallest. And humblest of all was the Lord’s Passion and death on the cross.
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St. John Chrysostom
from Homilies on St. Matthew’s Gospel, 61
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6,12)
Christ asks two things of us: to condemn our own offences and forgive those of others, doing the first of these for the sake of the second, which will become easier in consequence since whoever reflects on his own sins becomes less severe towards those of his fellow in wretchedness. And forgiving, too, not merely in word but from the heart, lest we turn on ourselves the barb with which we aimed to stab others. What hurt is your enemy capable of inflicting compared to that which you inflict on yourself?… If you give way to indignation and anger you will be hurt, not by the insult he has done to you, but by the resentment you bear for it.
So don’t say: “He has insulted and slandered me and caused me a great deal of unhappiness.” The more you say he has hurt you, the more you show he has done you good since he has given you the chance of being purified of your sins. Thus, the more he does to offend you, the more he places you in a position to obtain forgiveness for your own offences from God. For if we will, no one can harm us; even our enemies do us great service by this means… Consider, then, how many advantages you draw from an insult endured humbly and gently.
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Jacob of Sarug
from Poem
“I shall get up and go to my father”
As the prodigal son, I will return to my father’s house and I will be welcomed back home. I will do the same, as he did: won’t the father grant my prayer too? O forgiving Father, here I am at your door and I knock; open to me, let me enter, so that I may not ruin myself, go away and die! You made me your heir and I neglected my inheritance and squandered my goods; from now on, may I be as a mercenary and as a servant to you.
As of the tax collector, have mercy on me and I shall live by your grace! O Son of God, forgive my sins as you did with the adulteress. Save me from the waves, as you did with Peter. Have mercy on my lowness, as you did for the good criminal, and remember me! O Lord, come search for me, like the lost sheep, and you will find me; carry me on your shoulders, Lord, to the house of your Father.
As you did with the blind man, open my eyes, that I may see your light! As for the deaf, open my ears, that I may hear your voice! As for the paralytic, heal my disability so that I may praise your name. As for the leper, cleanse me of my sin with your hyssop (cf. Ps 50,9). As the young girl, the daughter of Jairus, make me live, our Lord. As Peter’s mother-in-law, heal me, for I am sick. As the young boy, the widow’s son, raise me up, that I may stand up again.
As you did with Lazarus, cry out to me with your own voice and undo my bandages. For I am dead because of sin, like as for a sickness; raise me up from my ruin, that I may praise your name!
I beg you, Lord of heaven and earth, come save me and show me your way so that I may come towards you. Bring me back to you, Son of the Good Lord, and fill me with your mercy. I will come to you and then will I be filled with joy.
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St. Cyprian
from The good of patience, 4-5 (PL 4, 624-625)
Imitating God’s patience
But how wonderful and how great is the patience of God!… He makes the day to rise and the sun to shine equally over the good and the evil (Mt 5,45). When he waters the earth with showers no one is excluded from his benefits, but he bestows his rains without distinction on the just and the unjust alike.
We see that, at the will of God, with an indivisible uniformity of patience toward the guilty and the innocent, the religious and the impious, the grateful and the ungrateful, the seasons obey and the elements serve, the winds blow, fountains flow, harvests increase in abundance, the fruits of the vines ripen, trees are heavy with fruit, the groves become green, and the meadows burst into flower…
And although vengeance is within his power, he prefers to be long-suffering in his patience, that is, waiting steadfastly and delaying in his mercy, so that, if it is at all possible, the long career of malice at some time may change, and man… may be converted to God even at a late hour, as he himself warns and says: “I desire not the death of the one who is dying but rather that he turn to me again and live” (Ez 33,11). And again: “Return to the Lord your God for he is merciful and loving and patient and rich in pity” (Jl 2,13)…
Now, Jesus tells us: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5,48). He said that it is in this way that the sons of God are made perfect; he showed that it is in this way that we attain our goal, and he taught that we are restored by a heavenly birth if the patience of God the Father abides in us, if the divine likeness which Adam lost by sin be manifested and shine in our actions. What glory it is to become like God! What wonderful and what great happiness it is to possess among our virtues what can be put on a par with the divine merits!
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St. Augustine
from Sermon 11, 2-3
The Widow of Zarephath
The poor widow had gone out to look for two blocks of wood to bake some bread: it is at this time that Elijah meets her. This woman is the symbol of the Church; because a cross is made of two pieces of wood, the woman, who was destined to die, searches for something by which to live eternally.
There is a hidden mystery in this…Elijah tells her: “Go, feed me first with your poverty, and you will not run out of your goods”. What a blessed poverty! If the widow received here on earth such retribution, what a reward may she hope to receive in the life to come!
I insist on this point: let us not expect to harvest the fruit of our sowing now, at the time we sow. Here on earth, we sow with difficulty what will be the harvest of our good works, but only later on will we gather the fruits of this with joy, according to what is said: “Those who go forth weeping, carrying sacks of seed, Will return with cries of joy, carrying their bundled sheaves” (Ps 125,6).
Actually Elijah’s act towards this woman was not her reward, but only a symbol of it. For if this widow would have been rewarded here on earth for having fed the man of God, what a miserable sowing, what a poor crop! She received just a temporal good: a jar of flour that did not go empty and a jug of oil that did not run dry till the day the Lord watered the earth with his rain.
This sign that was given to her by God for a few days was therefore the symbol of the future life where our reward could not be lessened. Our flour will be God himself! As the flour of this woman did not run out in these days, we will not be deprived of God for all the rest of eternity…Sow with faith and your harvest will surely come; it will come later on, but when it will come, you will reap it endlessly.
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St. Catherine of Siena
from Dialogues, ch. 4
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled”
[St. Catherine heard God say to her:] You ask for the will to know and love me, supreme Truth. Here is the way, if you would come to perfect knowledge and enjoyment of me, eternal Life: Never leave the knowledge of yourself. Then, put down as you are in the valley of humility you will know me in yourself, and from this knowledge you will draw all that you need. No virtue can have life in it except from charity, and charity is nursed and mothered by humility.You will find humility in the knowledge of yourself when you see that even your own existence comes not from yourself but from me, for I loved you before you came to being. And in my unspeakable love for you I willed to create you in grace. So I washed you and made you a new creation in the blood that my only-begotten Son poured out with such burning love. This blood gives you knowledge of the truth when knowledge of yourself leads you to shed the cloud of selfish love. There is no other way to know the truth. In so knowing me the soul catches fire with unspeakable love, which in turn brings continual pain.
Indeed, because she has known my truth as well as her own sin and her neighbors’ in· gratitude and blindness, the soul suffers intolerably. Still, this is not a pain that troubles or shrivels up the soul. On the contrary, it makes her grow fat. For she suffers because she loves me, nor would she suffer if she did not love me.
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St. Maximus the Confessor
from The ascetic life, 40-42 (PG 90, 912)
“The measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you”
Having learned from Scripture what the fear of the Lord is and what are his goodness and love, let us turn to him with all our hearts… Let us keep his commandments and love one another with all our hearts. Let us call ‘brothers’ even those who hate and detest us so that the Lord’s name may be glorified and made known in all its joy.
We who are such a trial to one another: let us forgive each other… Let us not bear any envy towards others and, if we are exposed to jealousy, do not let us become outraged. Let us rather show ourselves compassionate towards one another and bring healing to one another by our humility. Do not let us malign or mock for we are all members of each other.
Let us love one another and we will be loved by God. Let us be patient with one another and he will show himself patient with our sins. Do not let us pay back evil for evil and we shall not receive what we ourselves have merited by our sins. For we shall win forgiveness for our sins by forgiving our brother, and God’s mercy is concealed within mercy towards our neighbor… You see, the Lord has given us the means of saving ourselves and the strength from heaven to become sons of God.
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Anastasius of Sinai
from Homily on the Transfiguration
“Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory, spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem”
Today, on Mount Tabor, the state of our future life and the Kingdom of joy are mysteriously made manifest. Today, in an unexpected way, the former messengers of the Old and New Covenants have come together on the mountain beside their God as bearers of a paradoxical mystery.
Today, on Mount Tabor, is sketched out the mystery of the cross which, through death, gives life. Just as Christ was crucified between two men on Mount Calvary, so he now stands in his divine majesty between Moses and Elijah. And today’s feast shows us that other Sinai, that mountain far more precious than Sinai by reason of its wonders and events. With its theophany it far surpasses merely representative and vague divine visions…
Rejoice! O Creator of all that is, Christ our King, Son of God radiant with light, who have transfigured all creation in your image and have recreated it in an even better way… And you, too, rejoice! O image of the heavenly Kingdom, most holy mount of Tabor, surpassing in beauty all other mountains! Mount Golgotha and you, O mount of Olives, sing a hymn together and rejoice; sing with one voice of Christ on Mount Tabor and together chant his praises!
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St. Isaac the Syrian
from Discourse, 2nd series, 38,5 and 39,3
“He makes his sun rise on the bad and the good”
There is no changing of intentions in the Creator, neither before nor after: there is neither hate nor resentment in his nature, nor is there a bigger or a smaller place in his love, nor a before or an after in his knowledge. For if we all believe that creation began to exist as a consequence of the goodness and love of the Creator, we know that this first motive will not die down nor will it change in the Creator, following the disorderly course of his creation.
It would be quite obnoxious and really blasphemous to believe that hate and resentment exist in God – even towards the demons – or to imagine other weaknesses or passions in Him. On the contrary, God acts towards us always in ways he knows being profitable for us, that these may be for us cause of suffering or of consolation, of joy or of sorrow, that they may be insignificant or glorious – all are oriented towards the same everlasting goods.
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St. Augustine
from Sermon 357
“If you recall that your brother has anything against you”
“God makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (Mt 5,45). He shows his patience; he does not exercise as yet his almighty power. So you, too,… withhold yourself from provocation and don’t increase the uneasiness of those who sow trouble. Are you a friend of peace? Remain peaceful within yourself… Set aside quarrelling and turn to prayer. Don’t return insult for insult but pray for the other person.
Would you like to speak to him against him? Speak to God on his behalf. I don’t say be silent, but find a convenient place and see the one you are speaking to in silence, by a cry from the heart. There, where your enemy cannot see you, in that very place show goodness on his behalf. To this adversary of peace, this friend of argument, you, who are a friend of peace, give answer: “Say whatever you like, whatever your enmity may be about, for you are my brother”…
“No matter how much you hate and repel me: you are my brother! Recognise within yourself the mark of my Father. This is my Father’s word: you are a disputatious brother yet you are my brother, for you, too, say the same as I do: ‘Our Father in heaven.’ We pray to one Father so why are we not at one? I beg you, acknowledge what it is you say together with me and renounce what you do against me… We have only one voice before the Father; why should we not together have one peace?”
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St. Peter Chrysologus
from Sermon 55 (PL 52, 352-354)
“Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread”
If by God’s will you are a father… then this is so that, in giving life yourself, you might also know what it means to feel a father’s love and thus, just as you feel affectionately towards your own children, can experience in yourself the love of your Creator …
So if you believe in God, and if you confess him as father, then everything he ordains, everything he decides with respect to you, believe that this is for your salvation, your life. We cannot cancel out the gifts of a mother, we cannot challenge the warnings of a father. Even if his fatherly demands seem to be strict, in reality they are saving and life-giving. So Abraham, once he had understood that God was father, did not linger over the difficult and demanding aspects of the commandments, but made his glory in what our heavenly Father ordains… Since it is God who commands, he entrusted himself wholly to his love…
Why, when one knows God, argue with his Fatherly gifts instead of welcoming them as good and beneficial, whereas little ones and those who are innocent expect everything from their father?
Let us look more closely at the comparison our Lord uses in his Gospel: “What father among you” he says to us, “would give a stone to his son who asks for bread?” Christ came for the sons, that is to say for his chosen people – even if he regretted having fathered them and cried out: “Sons have I raised and reared, but they have disowned me!” (Is 1,2). So he came on behalf of the sons, he, the true bread from heaven, who said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6,41)
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Melito of Sardis
from Homily on the Pasch, 82-90 (SC 123, p.107f.)
“The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death” You have not seen God; you have not recognized the Lord; you did not know that it was he, God’s Firstborn, he who was begotten before the morning star (Ps 110[109],3), who caused light to spring up, who caused day to shine forth when he separated it from darkness, who set the first limits, suspending the earth, drying up the great abyss, spreading out the firmament…, who created the angels in heaven, setting thrones there, and who shaped man of the earth.
He it was who chose Israel and guided it from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob and the twelve patriarchs. It was he who led your fathers in Egypt, who protected and fed them. He, who gave them manna from heaven, who quenched their thirst from the rock, who gave them the Law and the promised land, who sent prophets to them and raised up their kings. It is he who has come to you, healing the sick and raising the dead… It is he whom you wanted to put to death, he whom you handed over for money…
How have you esteemed the benefits bestowed on you?… Esteem now the withered hand he has restored to its body. Esteem now those born blind whom he has restored to the light with a word. Esteem now those dead he has raised from their tombs after three or four days. The gifts he has given you are priceless. And you…, you have repaid him evil for good, affliction for joy, death for life.
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Baldwin of Ford
from The Sacrament of the Altar, 3, 2 (SC 94, p. 523 rev.)
“The Sabbath was made for man”
Blessed repose and a holy satisfaction are what make for true beatitude, and of this Sabbath and the manna are symbols. When he had given rest and satiety to his people with the Sabbath and manna, thus prefiguring the true blessedness he will give to those who obey, the Lord rebukes for his disobedience the man who might cause them to lose these most desirable possessions: “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and laws?” (Ex 16,28).
After this question of the Lord’s, Moses invites his brethren to consider God’s gifts: “Take note! The Lord has given you the Sabbath. That is why on the sixth day he gives you food for two days so that you may consent to serve him.” This warning means that God will give rest for their labours to his elect and the consolations of this present life in addition to those of the life to come.
But in addition to this, two forms of life are suggested to us by this passage: the active life in which we now have to work, and the contemplative life for which we are working and in which we shall be completely available to the contemplation of God. For although the contemplative life belongs especially to the world to come yet it must be represented even in this life by the holy Sabbath rest.
Concerning this rest Moses adds: “On the Sabbath day everyone is to stay home and no one is to go out.” In other words: Everyone is to rest in their house and not go out for any kind of work on the Sabbath. This teaches us that during times of contemplation we should remain within ourselves, nor go out by means of forbidden desires but collect our whole intention “in purity of heart” [as St. Benedict says] to think on God alone and love him only.
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Rupert of Deutz
from On the Trinity and all His Works, 42, On Isaiah, 2, 26
“The Bridegroom is with them”
“I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul…, Like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem, like a bride bedecked with her jewels.” Head and members, Bridegroom and Bride, Christ and the Church, we are all one body. Henceforward, in Christ the Bridegroom the crown of victory will shine for evermore – He who is my head and who suffered for a while. Whereas upon me, his Bride, will shine the jewels of his triumphs and graces.
“As the earth brings forth its plants and a garden makes its growth spring up, so will the Lord God make justice and praise spring up before all the nations.” He is the Bridegroom and I his Bride; he is the Lord God and I his land and garden; he is the gardener and I his field. The same one who, as Creator, is my Lord and God, is also my gardener since he became man…
Since the gardener “plants and waters but God gives the increase”, so he who is the Only One plants with his humanity and waters when he proclaims the Good News and gives the increase through his divinity thanks to his Spirit. Therefore I, the Church, “will bring forth and cause to spring up the justice of faith and praise of God”, not just before the Jews but “before all the nations”.
They “will see my good deeds” when they read of the words and deeds of the patriarchs and prophets, when they hear the voice of the apostles and receive their light. They will see and believe and “glorify their heavenly Father”.
(Biblical references: Is 61,10f.; 1Cor 12,12; Jn 15,1; 1Co 3,6-9; Mt 5,16)
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St. Romanos Melodios
Hymn no.18, The Wedding at Cana (trans. SC 110, p. 307f. rev.)
“You have kept the good wine until now”
While Christ was attending the wedding and the crowd of guests were enjoying themselves, the wine ran out and their joy was turned to dismay… Seeing this, Mary most pure straightaway comes to say to her son: “They have no more wine; therefore I beg you, my child, show how you can do everything, you who created all things in wisdom.”
Revered Virgin, from which of his miracles, I pray, did you know that your son, without having harvested the grape, was able to bestow wine, when he had never yet accomplished a miracle before? Tell us… how was it you said to your son: “Give them wine, you who created all things in wisdom.”
” – – I saw myself how Elizabeth addressed me as Mother of God before I had given birth and, after giving birth, Symeon sang of me, Anna praised me. The wise men hastened to the crib from Persia for a star foretold this childbearing; shepherds and angels made themselves heralds of joy and creation rejoiced together with them. What greater miracles than these could I look for than to believe from their faith that my son is he who created all things in wisdom?”…
When Christ openly changed water into wine by his power the whole crowd rejoiced, finding the taste of this wine to be wonderful. Today the Church’s banquet is where we are all seated for the wine is changed into the blood of Christ and we all drink of it in holy gladness, glorifying our great Bridegroom. For the true Bridegroom is Mary’s son, the Word from all eternity, who took the form of a slave and created all things in wisdom.
O Most High, Holy One, Savior of all: keep unimpaired the wine within us since you preside over all. Cast out from us every perversity, evil thoughts that water down your wine so holy… By the prayers of the holy Virgin Mother of God deliver us from the anguish of the sins that oppress us, O merciful God who have created all things in wisdom.
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St. John Chrysostom
from Separate Homilies: On the Paralytic
“Seeing their faith”
This paralytic believed in Jesus Christ. In what way is this manifest? From the very manner of his approach to Christ. They let the man down through the roof… You are surely aware that invalids are so faint-hearted and difficult to please as often to decline the treatment administered to them on their sick bed… But this paralytic had the fortitude to go outside the house, to be carried in the midst of the market-place and exhibit himself in the presence of the crowd…
This paralytic did not suffer from pride. When he saw that the place of assembly was filled, the approaches blocked, the entrance obstructed, he submitted to be let down through the roof. So skillful is desire, so rich in resources is love! “For those who seek, find, and to those who knock the door will be opened” (cf. Mt 7,8).
The man did not say to his friends: “What is the meaning of this? Why make this fuss? Why such eagerness? Let us wait until the house is clear and everyone has gone. The crowds will disperse and then we shall be able to approach Jesus privately…” No, the paralytic said none of these things either to himself or to his bearers, but regarded it as an honor to have so many people made witnesses of his cure.
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St. Bonaventure
from Sermon “Christus unus omnium magister”
“What is this? A new teaching with authority”
There is no possibility of reaching certitude regarding revealed faith except by means of Christ’s coming into the soul. He then comes into the flesh as word confirming every word of prophecy, of which it was said to the Hebrews: “In times past God spoke through the prophets in partial and various ways; in these last days he spoke to us through a Son” (Heb 1,1-2).
That Christ is indeed the Father’s all-powerful Word, we read: “His word is sovereign and who can say to him: What are you doing?” (Eccl 8,4). He is, too, a word full of truth – even more, he is truth itself – as St. John says: “Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth” (17,17)…
And so, because authority belongs to the word that is powerful and trustworthy, and Christ is the Word of the Father and, therefore, both Power and Wisdom, so all the strength of authority is founded and consummated in him.
That is why all genuine doctrine, and that doctrine’s preachers, referred to Christ’s coming in the flesh as being the foundation of the entire christian faith: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation… But no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ” (1Cor 3,10-11).
For he alone is all genuine doctrine’s foundation, whether apostolic or prophetic, according to both one Law and the other, new and old. Thus it is said to the Ephesians: You have built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself as the capstone” (2,20). And so it is clear that Christ is the teacher of knowledge according to faith; he is the Way according to his twofold coming, in spirit and in flesh.
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St. Augustine
from Letter to Proba on prayer, 8-9 (CSEL 44,56f.)
“Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed”
What is the use of wandering hither and thither, looking about for what we should be asking for in prayer? Let us rather say in the words of the psalm: “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” (Ps 27[26],4). Now, there “all the days” do not pass by, coming and going, nor does one begin when another ends, but all exist at once; they have no end; because the life itself, whose days they are, is without end.
To enable us to win this blessed life, he who is in person the true life has taught us to pray. Not with a flood of words as though we would be answered by reason of our babbling. For indeed, as our Lord himself said, we are praying to him who knows what we need before we ask him (Mt 6,8)…
Does he know what we need before we ask him? In that case, why does he exhort us to pray without ceasing? (Lk 18,1). This might surprise us; but we should understand that our Lord God has no wish to be informed of our desire – of which he cannot be ignorant. But he wants our desire to be stirred up by prayer so that we might be able to receive what he is preparing to give us.
For that is something very great, whereas we are small and of meagre capacity! That I why we are told: “Open wide your hearts” (2Cor 6,11.13). This is something very great indeed…: and we shall be all the more able to receive it insofar as we believe in it with more faith, hope for it with more confidence, desire it with more ardour. Thus it is in faith, hope, love and uninterrupted desire that we pray always.
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St. John Chrysostom
from Homilies on St. Matthew’s Gospel, no.25, 1-3
Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “Be made clean.”
Jesus did not just say: “I will do it. Be made clean.” He went further: “He stretched out his hand and touched him.” Now here is something worthy of our notice. Given that he cured him by an act of his will and with a word, why did he touch him with his hand? For no other reason, it seems to me, than to demonstrate that he is not inferior but superior to the Law and that, from now on, nothing is impure for those who are pure…
Jesus’ hand did not become impure at the leper’s contact; to the contrary, the leper’s body was purified by means of the holiness of the hand. For Christ did not just come to heal bodies but to raise up souls to sanctity, and here he teaches us to care for our soul and purify it without bothering ourselves about external ablutions. The only leprosy we need to be afraid of is leprosy of soul, that is to say, sin…
As for us, let us show thanksgiving to God at all times. Let us thank him, not only for the gifts he has given to us but, still more, for those he has granted to others. In this way we shall be able to destroy our envy and nurture and increase our love of neighbor…
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St. Gregory Nazianzen
from Homily 39, for the Feast of Epiphany; (PG 36, 349; trans. Breviary)
“Then heaven was opened”
Christ is illumined, let us shine forth with him; Christ is baptized, let us descend with him that we may also ascend with him… John baptizes, Jesus comes to him; perhaps to sanctify the Baptist himself, but certainly to bury the whole of the old Adam in the water. But before this, and for the sake of this, to sanctify Jordan. As he is Spirit and flesh, so he consecrates us by Spirit and water…
Now Jesus goes up out of the water; for with himself he carries up the world and sees the heaven split open (cf. Mk 1,10) which Adam had shut against himself and all his posterity when he was expelled from the Paradise defended by the flaming sword.
Now the Spirit bears witness to his Godhead, for he descends upon one who is like him, as does the Voice from heaven (for he to whom witness is borne comes from thence), and like a dove seen in bodily form it bestows honor on his body since God, by showing himself in bodily form, has deified the body also. In the same way, in distant ages past, a dove came to proclaim an ending to the Deluge (Gen 8,11)…
As for us, let us venerate today the baptism of Christ and celebrate this feast in worthy fashion… Wash yourselves and keep yourselves clean. For God rejoices in nothing so much as the amendment and salvation of humankind, on whose behalf all these words and mystery are directed.
Be like lights in the world (Phil 2,15), a life-giving force to others. Stand as perfect lights beside that great Light and learn the mystery of the illumination of heaven, enlightened more purely and more clearly by the blessed Trinity.
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Diadochus of Photike
from On Spiritual Perfection, 12-14 (PG 65, 1171)
“The best man, who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly”
Glory belongs to God by reason of his greatness and lowliness belongs to us because it makes us friends of God. If we thus act then we shall be joyful after the example of John the Baptist and will begin to repeat over and over again unceasingly: “He must increase and I must decrease.”
I know of someone who loves God so much – even though he is tormented that he doesn’t love him as much as he wants – that his soul continually experiences this ardent desire: that God should be glorified in him and he himself should disappear.
Such a man does not know what he is, even when he is praised, because, in his great desire to be humbled, he never thinks of his own dignity. He performs the divine liturgy but… in the extremity of his disposition of love for God, he hides all remembrance of his own dignity within the abyss of his love for God… He flees from pride, which he draws out of himself lest he should seem to himself to be anything except an unprofitable servant (Lk 17,10)… And this is what we should do too: flee from all honor and glory because of the Lord’s overflowing love who has loved us so much.
All those who love God from the depths of their heart are known by him. Indeed, they possess the love of God to the extent they receive God’s love into the depths of their soul. That is why, from henceforth, such people live with an ardent passion for the enlightenment of knowledge until they taste great interior satisfaction. Then they no longer know themselves; they are wholly transformed by God’s love.
Such as these are in this life without being in it. Should they continue to dwell in the body, they are continually leaving it through the soul’s impetus of love carrying them towards God. From now on, without ceasing, with hearts burned by the fire of love, they remain irresistibly bound to God because they have been separated once and for all from self-love by the love of God.
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Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] from Vom Sinn des Christseins (The Meaning of Being Christian)
“The kingdom of God is at hand”
We need to question ourselves concerning Christ’s real message: what exactly did he proclaim, what did he offer people? We recall that St. Mark summarizes the message of Christ in a single saying: “This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
“This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand.” Behind this saying we are to see the whole history of Israel, of that insignificant people, plaything of the world’s great powers. One after another it experienced, so to speak, each empire that succeeded within this locus of history. It knew just how incapable human power, including its own, was to achieve salvation. It knew only too well that human governments act according to human ways, that is to say in ways that, only too often, are second-rate and questionable.
And in the midst of this experience of a history that was full of disappointment, subjection, injustice, Israel had ardently reached out towards a kingdom whose king would no longer be simply a man but God himself, the true Lord of the world and history. Only his very own reign – he who is Truth and Justice – was capable of bringing salvation and right to humankind. Now at last the Lord comes to meet this age-old expectation by proclaiming: now is the time of fulfilment, now the Kingdom of God is here…
Christian theology, having swiftly remarked the lacuna between this expectation and its accomplishment, began, over a period of time, to transform the Kingdom of God into a kingdom of a heaven situated somewhere in the beyond. Man’s salvation had been changed into a salvation of souls which, too, would be realized in the beyond, after death. But this is no answer.
Because the greatness of Christ’s message is, precisely, that he did not just speak about souls and of the beyond but that he spoke to the whole person in their bodiliness and their insertion in history and the human community, and that he promised the Kingdom of God to people of flesh and blood living among others engaged in that same history.
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St. John Chrysostom
from Homilies on the 1st letter to the Corinthians, no.24, 4 (PG 61, 204)
“He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them saying: ‘This is my body'” (Lk 22,19)
Christ gave us his flesh to eat in order to deepen our love for him. When we approach him, then, there should be burning within us a fire of love and longing… The wise men paid homage to Christ’s body even when it was lying in a manger… They only saw Christ in a manger, they saw nothing of what you now see, and yet they approached him with profound awe and reverence.
You see him, not in a manger but on an altar, not carried by a woman but offered by a priest; and you see the Spirit bountifully poured out upon the offerings of bread and wine. Unlike the wise men, you do not merely see Christ’s body: you know his power as well, and the whole divine plan for our salvation… Let us then awaken in ourselves a feeling of awe and let us show a far greater reverence than did those foreigners so that we do not approach this sacrament casually, without thinking of what we do…
This food strengthens us; it emboldens us to speak freely to our God; if is our hope, our salvation, our light and our life. If we go to the next world fortified by this sacrifice, we shall enter its sacred portals with perfect confidence as though protected all over by armor of gold. But why do I speak of the next world? Because of this sacrament earth becomes heaven for you. Throw open the gates of heaven, look through and you will see the proof of what I say.
What is heaven’s most precious possession? I will show you it here on earth. I do not show you angels or archangels, heaven or the heaven of heavens, but I show you the very Lord of all these. Do you not see how you gaze, here on earth, upon what is most precious of all? You not only gaze on it but touch it as well. You not only touch it but eat it. So cleanse your soul from sin and prepare your mind to receive these mysteries.
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St. Hilary
from Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 14, 13-14 (trans. SC 258, p. 27 rev.)
“About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them”
“Then he made the disciples get into the boat while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up to pray. When it was evening, he was there alone” (cf. Mt 14,22-23). If we are to explain these happenings we must distinguish between the times. If he was alone in the evening, this points to his solitude at the hour of his Passion when panic had caused everyone to scatter.
If he made his disciples get into the boat and cross over the sea while he himself dismissed the crowds, and if, having dismissed them, he went up a mountain, this means that he directed them to remain in the Church and to sail across the sea – that is to say, this world – until, at his return in glory, he would grant salvation to all who are to be the remnant of Israel (cf. Rom 11,5)… and this people would give thanks to God his Father and be set firm within his glory and majesty…
“During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them.” In the expression “fourth watch of the night” we find the number corresponding to the signs of his care. Thus, the first watch was that of the Law; the second, that of the prophets; the third, that of his coming in the flesh; the fourth is situated in his return in glory.
But he will find the Church declining and hemmed in by the spirit of the Antichrist and all the distresses of this world. He will come when anxieties and afflictions are at their height… The disciples will be terrified even by the coming of the Lord, fearing the images of a reality distorted by the Antichrist and by the deceitful imaginations infiltrating their sight. But our good Lord will speak to them directly, casting out their fear and saying: “It is I”, dispersing their fear of imminent shipwreck by faith in his coming.
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Latin Liturgy of the Hours
from Hymn for the feast of the dedication of a church: Urbs Jerusalem beata
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem”
Celestial new Jerusalem Blest sight! awakening joy and peace, which soaring to the starry sky from living stones find your increase – a thousand angel hosts surround their Master’s Spouse, with splendor crowned.
O Bride of our immortal King, the Father’s glory is your dower; you are the rare and radiant Queen, encircled by the Bridegroom’s power; your perfect comeliness and grace reflect the beauty of his face.
With softly beaming pearls adorned stands wide the ever-open gate; for none who follow virtuous paths will be repulsed or asked to wait, if only they have sacrificed their life on earth, for love of Christ.
Engraved by many a silent stroke – the Savior’s hard, yet skilful blows – and chiselled by a master hand, these stones together will compose a mighty structure; every soul finds its true place within the whole. (Biblical references: 1Pt 2,5; Rv 21,2.18; Col 3,16)
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St. Basil
from Homily 6 Against Wealth; (PG 31, 275-278)
“Well for the man who is gracious and lends… who gives to the poor; his generosity shall endure for ever” (Ps 112[111], 5,9)
However are you going to answer the supreme judge, you who drape your walls but do not clothe your fellow? you who dress your hair but do not so much as glance at your brother in distress?… you who hoard your gold but fail to assist the oppressed?…
What is there that belongs to you, tell me that? From whom have you received everything you carry with you through this life?… Didn’t you emerge naked from your mother’s womb? And won’t you return equally naked to the dust? (Jb 1,21). From whom do you have possession of your present goods? Answer by chance, and you are an irreligious person who refuses to know your creator or thank your benefactor. If you admit it is from God then tell me what is the reason you received them.
Could God be unjust in sharing out unequally the good things necessary for life? Why are you enjoying abundance while that other is in want? Isn’t it solely so that one day, through your goodness and disinterested administration, you might receive your reward while the poor man will gain the crown promised to patience?… The bread you keep for yourself belongs to the hungry; to the naked belongs the cloak that you store away in your chest… So you commit as many deeds of injustice as there are people you might have helped.
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St. Bernard
from Sermon 30 on the Song of Songs
The mystery of God’s vineyard
Brethren, if we understand the Lord’s vineyard to be the Church… it seems to me that we here encounter a significant prerogative. Note in a special way how the Church extended her boundaries all over the world… By this I understand that company of believers who were described as “of one heart and soul.” (Acts 4,32)… For during the persecution it had not been so uprooted that it could not be elsewhere replanted and leased “to other tenants who will deliver the produce to her when the season arrives.” No indeed, it did not perish, it changed to a new location; it even increased and spread further afield under the blessing of the Lord.
So, brethren, lift up your eyes round about and see if the mountains were not covered with its shade, the cedars of God with its branches; if its tendrils did not extend to the sea and its offshoots all the way to the river (Ps 80[79],11-12). No wonder this: it is God’s building, God’s farm (1Cor 3,9). He waters it; he propagates it, prunes and cleanses it that it may bear even more fruit. When did he ever deprive of his care and labor that which his right hand planted? (Ps 80[79],15).
There can be no question of neglect where the apostles are the branches, the Lord is the vine, and his Father is the vinedresser (Jn 15,1-5). Planted in faith, its roots are grounded in love, dug in with the hoe of discipline, fertilized with penitential tears, watered with the words of preachers, and so it abounds with the wine that inspires joy rather than debauchery, wine full of the pleasure that is never licentious. This is the wine that gladdens heart (Ps 104[103],15)… Be consoled, daughter of Sion! Yours is to wonder at the mystery rather than bewail the harm; let your heart be expanded to gather together the fullness of the pagans!
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St. Irenaeus of Lyons
from Against the Heresies III, 20, 1 (cf SC 34, p. 339)
The sign of Jonah
God showed patience in the face of man’s weakness because he saw beforehand the victory he would eventually give him through his Word. For, when “power was made perfect in weakness” (2Cor 12,9), the Word caused God’s goodness and tremendous power to be made manifest.
Indeed, it was the same with man as it was with the prophet Jonah. God permitted Jonah to be swallowed by a sea-monster, not to make him altogether vanish away and die but so that when he had been vomited out by the monster he would become more subject to God and would give all the more glory to him who had given him this unexpected deliverance. It was, too, to lead the Ninevites to firm repentance and to convert them to him who would deliver them from death, amazed as they were by the sign accomplished in Jonah…
In the same way, God permitted man to be swallowed by that great monster, the author of disobedience, not so that he should altogether vanish away and die but because God had prepared beforehand the salvation fulfilled by his Word by means of the “sign of Jonas”. This salvation has been prepared for those who have the same feelings for God as Jonah did and who confess him in the same words: “I am the servant of the Lord and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jon 1,9).
God desired that man, by receiving an unanticipated salvation from him, would rise from the dead and worship God, saying with Jonah: “Out of my distress I called to the Lord; from the midst of the nether world he heard my voice” (Jon 2,2). God desired, too, that man would always remain faithful in giving him worship and unceasing thanks for the salvation he has received from him.
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St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross [Edith Stein] from The Prayer of the Church
The Our Father and the Eucharist
All that we need to be received into the communion of saints is summed up in the seven petitions of the Our Father, which the Lord did not pray in his own name, but to instruct us. We say it before communion, and when we say it sincerely and from our hearts and receive communion in the proper spirit, it fulfills all our petitions.
Communion delivers us from evil, because it cleanses us of sin and gives us peace of heart that takes away the sting of all other “evils.” It brings us the forgiveness of past sins and strengthens us in the face of temptations. It is itself the bread of life that we need daily to grow into eternal life. It makes our will into an instrument at God’s disposal. Thereby it lays the foundation for the kingdom of God in us and gives us clean lips and a pure heart to glorify God’s holy name.
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A Sermon Attributed to St. Augustine
“You shall be called Peter” (Jn 1,42)
“You are Peter and on this rock I shall build my Church”. He was given this name of ‘Peter’ because he was the first to set the foundations of the faith among the nations and because he is the indestructible rock on which rests the judgement seat and the whole edifice belonging to Christ Jesus. It was on account of his faithfulness that he was called Peter, whereas our Lord receives the same name on account of his power according to St. Paul’s words: “They drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was the Christ” (1Cor 10,4). Yes, the apostle chosen to be his co-worker merited to share the same name as Christ. They built the same building together: Peter does the planting, the Lord gives the increase, and it is the Lord, too, who sends those who will do the watering (cf. 1Cor 3,6f.).
As you know, my beloved, it was following on from his own failure, when our Savior suffered, that blessed Peter was raised up. It was after he had denied the Lord that he became the first next to him. Rendered more faithful when he wept over the faith he had betrayed, he received a still greater grace than the one he had lost. To him Christ confided his flock so that he might guide it like a good shepherd, and he who had been so weak would now become the support of all. He who had fallen when questioned on his faith, must now establish the others on the unshakeable foundations of faith. Hence he is called the foundation stone of the piety of the Churches.
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St. Ambrose
from Commentary on St. Luke, IV, 7-12
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil”
You must recall how the first Adam was cast out of Paradise into the desert if you are to attend to the way in which the second Adam (1Cor 15,45) returns from the desert to paradise. Notice, then, how the first punishment was unloosed in just the same way as it had been knotted, and how the divine blessings were restored along the same lines as those that went before. Adam emerges out of virgin earth, Christ comes forth from a Virgin; the former was made in God’s image, the latter is God’s Image itself (Col 1,15); the former was set above all irrational beasts, the latter above every living creature. Foolishness came through a woman, wisdom through a Virgin; death came from a tree, life from the cross. The one, being divested of spiritual clothing, wove a garment of leaves from a tree; the other, divested of this world’s clothing, no longer sought material dress (Jn 19,23).
Adam was cast out into the desert; Christ comes forth from the desert, for he was fully cognizant of where he would find condemned man, whom he would lead back into paradise set free from his sins… For how, without a guide, could he who had lost his way in Paradise through lack of a guide, rediscover in the desert the road he had lost? Temptations are numerous there, the struggle for virtue is difficult and false moves into error are easy… So let us follow Christ, as it is written: “The Lord your God shall you follow, holding fast to him alone” (Dt 13,5)… Let us follow in his footsteps and we shall be able to return to paradise from the desert .
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Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
from No Greater Love
Called to become saints
What is the perfect will of God where we are concerned? You must become holy. Holiness is the greatest gift God could give us since he created us for this. For someone who loves, to obey is more than a duty, it is the very secret of sanctity.
As St. Francis reminds us: each of us is what he is in God’s sight – neither more nor less. We are all called to become saints. There is nothing out of the ordinary about this call. We have all been created in God’s image that we might love and be loved. Jesus desires our perfection with inexpressible longing. “This is the will of God: your holiness” (1Thes 4,3). His Sacred Heart is overflowing with an unquenchable desire to see us progressing towards holiness.
We should renew daily our decision to stir ourselves up to greater fervor, as if it were a matter of the first day of our conversion, saying: “Lord my God, come to help me with my good resolutions in your holy service and grant me the grace on this very day to make a true beginning, for what I’ve done up till now is nothing.” We cannot be renewed if we haven’t got the humility to recognize what it is in us that needs it.
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St. Maximus of Turin
from Sermon 28 (PL 57, 587-590 ; CC Sermon 35, 136-139)
The origin of Lent: accompanying catechumens to their baptism at Easter
Following this time consecrated to the observance of fasting, the soul comes to baptism, purified and exhausted. But it regains strength through being submerged in the waters of the Spirit. Everything in it that had been consumed by the flames of its ills is born again from the dew of heaven’s grace. Abandoning the corruption of the old man, the neophyte gains fresh youth… By a new birth he is reborn another person although he is the same as the one who sinned.
Elijah merited, through an uninterrupted fast of forty days and forty nights, to end a long, hard drought over the whole earth thanks to water from heaven; he quenched the ground’s burning thirst by bringing it a heavy rain (1Kgs 19,8; 18,41). These events came about as an example for us all that we might merit, after a forty day fast, the blessed rain of baptism, so that water from heaven might sprinkle all the earth, for so long arid amongst our brethren in all the world.
By a fast of the same number of days and nights, holy Moses merited to speak with God, to remain and stay with him and receive from his hands the commandments of the Law (Ex 24,18)… So let us, too, my dearest brethren, fast fervently throughout this time so that… the heavens may open for us too, and hell be shut.
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Oriental Liturgy
from Office of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Prayer of the Byzantine rite, rev.)
“Let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”
Hail, life-giving Cross! Piety’s unconquerable prize, gate of Paradise, comfort of those who believe, the Church’s rampart! It was through you that corruption was destroyed, the power of death was swallowed up and ended, and we were raised up above the earth to heavenly things. You are our invincible weapon, the demons’ foe, glory of the martyrs, true adornment of the saints and doorway to salvation…
Hail, O Cross of the Lord, through whom all humankind has been set free from its curse! You are our sign of true joy. When you were raised up you crushed our enemies to the ground. We venerate you, our help: strength of kings, soundness of the upright, dignity of sinners…
Hail, O precious Cross! Guide to the blind, medicine to the sick, resurrection for all who have died: you raised us up when we had fallen into the mire. It is through you that corruption has been ended and immortality has bloomed. It is through you we have been divinised, mere mortals though we are, while the devil has been utterly flung down…
O Christ, we who are sinners, with our unworthy lips, venerate your precious Cross this day. We sing praise to you who willed to be fixed upon it and we cry out to you like the thief: “Make us worthy of your Kingdom!”
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St. Leo the Great
from Fourth sermon for Lent, 1-2
“Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Co 6, 2)
“Behold, now is the day of salvation!” For though there are no seasons which are not full of divine blessings, and though access to God’s mercy is ever open to us by his grace, yet our minds should now be moved with all the more zeal towards spiritual progress and animated by even more confidence, for the day on which we were redeemed invites us to every kind of spiritual effort. Thus we shall keep the greatest of all mysteries, the sacrament of the Lord’s Passover, with purified minds and bodies.
These great mysteries do indeed require from us an unflagging spiritual effort… in such a way that we may stand continually in God’s sight just as we ought to be found on the feast of Easter itself. But because few have this constancy, and because the stricter observance is relaxed in consideration of the frailty of the flesh…
Divine Providence has with great beneficence taken care that the discipline of the forty days should heal us and restore the purity of our minds, during which the faults of other times might be redeemed by pious deeds and removed by holy fasting… So let us take care to obey the precepts of the Apostle Paul: “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit” (2Cor 7,1).
But let our way of living harmonize with our abstinence. For our fast does not consist chiefly of mere abstinence from food, nor does it profit anything to withdraw nourishment from the body, unless the mind is called away from injustice and the tongue restrained from slandering. This is a time of gentleness and long-suffering, of peace and tranquillity…now, today, when strong-minded souls accustom themselves with determination to forgive faults, pass over insults and forget wrongs… All the same, so that this spiritual self-restraint may not be gloomy, let it be holy. No murmurs of complaint should be heard from those who are never without the consolation of holy joys.
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St. Padre Pio de Pietrelcina
from Epistle 4, 418
“Why does this age seek a sign?” — Believing even in darkness
The Holy Spirit tells us: Don’t let your mind succumb to temptation and sorrow, for joy of the heart is life for the soul. Sorrow is no good for anything and causes our spiritual death. It happens sometimes that the darkness of trial overwhelms your soul’s heaven; but this darkness is light! Thanks to it, you believe even in darkness; the mind feels lost, it fears no longer being able to see, no longer understanding anything. But this is the moment when the Lord speaks and makes himself present to the soul; and the soul listens, understands and loves in the fear of God. So don’t wait for Tabor to “see” God when you are already contemplating him on Sinai. Progress in the joy of a sincere heart that is wide open. And if it is impossible for you to keep that happiness, at least don’t lose courage and keep all your trust in God.
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Pope Paul VI
from Apostolic Exhortation on Christian Joy “Gaudete in Domino”
“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours”
The joy of living in God’s love begins here below. It is the joy of the kingdom of God. But it is granted on a steep road which requires a total confidence in the Father and in the Son, and a preference given to the kingdom. The message of Jesus promises above all joy—this demanding joy; and does it not begin with the beatitudes? “How happy are you who are poor: yours is the kingdom of God. Happy you who are hungry now: you shall be satisfied. Happy you who weep now: you shall laugh.” In a mysterious way, Christ Himself accepts death at the hands of the wicked and death on the cross, in order to eradicate from man’s heart the sins of self-sufficiency and to manifest to the Father a complete filial obedience. But… henceforth, Jesus is living forever in the glory of the Father, and this is why the disciples were confirmed in an ineradicable joy when they saw the Lord on Easter evening. It remains that, here below, the joy of the kingdom brought to realization can only spring from the simultaneous celebration of the death and resurrection of the Lord. This is the paradox of the Christian condition which sheds particular light on that of the human condition: neither trials nor sufferings have been eliminated from this world, but they take on a new meaning in the certainty of sharing in the redemption wrought by the Lord and of sharing in His glory.
This is why the Christian, though subject to the difficulties of human life, is not reduced to groping for the way; nor does he see in death the end of his hopes. As in fact the prophet foretold: “The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone. You have made their gladness greater, you have made their joy increase….”(Is 9,1-2)
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Baldwin of Ford
from The Sacrament of the Altar, 2, 1 (SC 93, p. 131s rev.)
“Taking the seven loaves he gave thanks and broke them”
Jesus broke the bread. If he had not broken the bread how could its portions have come even to us? But he broke it and distributed it, “he has dispersed and given to the poor” (Ps 111,9 Vg.). Through grace he broke it to break his own and his Father’s wrath. As God has said: he would have broken us if his Only beloved, “his chosen one, had not stood in the breach before him, to turn away his anger” (Ps 106[105],23). He stood before God and appeased him; by his indestructible strength he stood upright and unbroken. As for himself, he willingly broke and offered his flesh, broken down by suffering. There it was that he “shattered the power of the bow” (Ps 76[75[,4), “crushed the heads of Leviathan” (Ps 74[73],14), of all our enemies, in his anger. And there he broke, as it were, the tablets of the first covenant so that we might no longer be under the Law. There he broke the yoke of our captivity. He broke all that was breaking us to restore in us all that was broken and to “set the oppressed free” (Is 58,6). For we were, indeed, “bondsmen in want and in chains” (Ps 107[106],10). Good Jesus, even though you have broken your wrath, still, today, break the bread for us who are yet hungry, poor beggars that we are… Each day, then, break this bread for those who hunger. For today and every day we gather up some crumbs, and every day we are in need of our daily bread again. “Give us this day our daily bread” (Lk 11,3). If you will not give it to us, who will? In our destitution and our need there is no one to break bread for us, no one to feed us, no one to restore us, no one except you, O our God. In every consolation you send, we gather up the crumbs of the bread you break for us and taste: “how sweet is your mercy” (Ps 108,21 Vg.).
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St. Ephrem
from Sermon “On our Lord,” 10-11
“He put his finger into the man’s ears and… touched his tongue”
Divine strength, untouchable by man, has come down to us and is clothed in a palpable body that those who are poor may touch it and, in touching the humanity of Christ, might perceive his divinity. Through fingers of flesh the deaf-mute felt his ears and tongue being touched.
Through palpable fingers he perceived the impalpable divinity when his tongue’s bond was broken and the closed doors of his ears were opened. For the architect and fashioner of the body has come even to him and, with words of sweetness, has painlessly created openings in his deaf ears. Then, too, this closed mouth that up to then had been unable to utter a word, brought forth praise of him who thus caused his barrenness to bear fruit. In the same way, our Lord made a paste with saliva and spread it over the eyes of the man born blind (Jn 9,6) so that we might understand that he was lacking something – like the deaf-mute. An inborn defect in our human clay was removed due to the leaven that emanates from his perfect body… To make up what was lacking in these human bodies of ours he gave us something of himself, just as he gives himself to be eaten [in the eucharist].
This is how he causes our deficiencies to disappear and raises up the dead, so that we might recognize that, thanks to his body “in which dwells all the fullness of the deity” (Col 2,9), the defects in our humanity are filled up and true life is given to mortal men through that body in which true life dwells.
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St. John Chrysostom
Homily: “Que le Christ soit annoncé “, 12-13; PG 51, 319-320
Humble and insistent prayer
A Canaanite woman came to Jesus begging his help. Most urgently she cried out on behalf of her daughter, who was possessed by a devil… Notice that the woman was a foreigner, a gentile, a person from outside the Jewish community.
What was she, then, but a dog, unworthy to obtain her request? “It is not fair,” said Jesus, “to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” Nevertheless, by perseverance she became worthy to have her prayers answered. For Jesus not only admitted her to the same noble rank as the children, dog though she was, but he also sent her away with high praise, saying: “Woman, you have great faith. Let it be as you desire.”
Now when Christ says: “You have great faith”, you need seek no further proof of the woman’s greatness of soul. You see that an unworthy woman became worthy by perseverance. And note, too, that we shall gain more by praying ourselves than by asking others to pray for us.
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St. John of the Cross
from Counsels and maxims
“A pure heart create for me, O God ” (Ps 51[50],12)
Purity of heart corresponds to the degree of love and grace of God. Therefore, when our Savior calls blessed those who are pure in heart (Mt 5,8), he speaks of those who are filled with love, since blessedness is bestowed on us according to the degree of our love. He who truly loves God is not ashamed of what he does for God before the world, nor does he hide it away in confusion though the whole world should scorn him. He who truly loves God considers the loss of all created things to be a gain and reward, together with the loss of himself for love of God… He that with pure love works for God not only does not care whether or not it is known by others, but does not even do these things that God Himself might know it… It is a great thing to exercise oneself much in holy love, for the soul who has attained the perfection and fulfilment of love is not held back, whether in this life or the next, from seeing the face of God. He whose heart is pure profits equally from being raised up or cast down to become ever more pure. Whereas the impure heart is useless for anything except to produce still more fruits of impurity. In everything the heart draws out a knowledge of God that is flavorsome, chaste, pure, spiritual, full of joy and love.
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St. José Maria Escriva de Balaguer
from Friends of God
Fishers of Men
When Jesus put out to sea with his disciples he wasn’t just thinking of that particular fishing expedition. That is why… he said to Peter: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men”. And divine effectiveness will not be lacking in the case of this new kind of fishing, either: the apostles will become the agents of great marvels in spite of their personal failings.
And we, too, if we struggle daily to acquire sanctity in our day to day lives, each according to our own condition in the midst of the world and the exercise of our professions, then I venture to affirm that our Lord will make instruments of us, capable of accomplishing miracles, even the most exceptional ones if needs be. We will give light to the blind.
Which of us could not tell of a thousand examples of the way in which someone blind, almost from their birth, has regained their sight and received the light of Christ in all its splendor? Someone else was deaf and another dumb, unable to understand or articulate a single word as children of God…: now they understand and express themselves like adults…
“In the name of Jesus” the apostles give strength back to a sick man who was incapable of all useful action… “In the name of the Lord, stand up and walk!” (Acts 3,6). Another, a dead man who already had a stench, heard God’s voice as at the time of the miracle of the widow of Naim’s son: “Young man, I tell you, arise!” (Lk 7,14; Acts 9,40; cf. Jn 11).
We will work miracles like Christ, miracles like the first apostles. Perhaps these wonders have happened in you, in me: perhaps we were blind or deaf or sick or smelt of death when the Word of God snatched us from our prostration. If we love Christ, if we follow him definitively, if he alone is the one we seek and not our own selves, then in his name we will be able to give without cost what we have received without cost.
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Vincent of Lérins
from Commonitory, 23
“Do you not yet understand or comprehend?”
But some one will say, perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ’s Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith…
The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.
The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infant’s limbs are small, a young man’s large, yet the infant and the young man are the same…, there were already present in embryo…
In like manner, it behoves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age… Our forefathers in the old time sowed wheat in the Church’s field. It would be most unmeet and iniquitous if we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of corn, should reap the counterfeit error of tares (Mt 13:24 sq).
This rather should be the result,—there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind—wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant… Therefore,… the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection.
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St. Thomas Aquinas
“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me”
May I desire nothing apart from you… Grant that I may often turn my heart towards you and, when I falter, weigh my fault contritely with firm purpose of amendment. Grant me, O Lord my God, a watchful heart that no vain thought may lead away from you; a noble heart that no unworthy affection may debase; an upright heart that no evasiveness may turn aside; a firm heart that no adversity may break; a free heart that no forceful passion may master.
Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind that knows you, an eagerness that seeks you, a wisdom that finds you, a life that pleases you, a perseverance that expects you confidently and a confidence that endlessly possesses you. Grant me to be afflicted through repentance by what you endured, to use your gifts through grace along the way, to rejoice in your joys especially in our homeland through glory. O You who, being God, live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.
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St. Cyril of Alexandria
from Commentary on the Gospel of John, 4
“As many as touched him were healed”
Even for restoring the dead to life the Savior did not stop at acting by word alone, though it was the bearer of divine commands. For such a surpassing work he took his own flesh as his assistant – if one might put it that way – that he might show that it has the power to give life and that he might cause it to be seen that it is entirely one with him. For it is indeed his very own flesh and not an alien body.
This is what happened when he restored to life the synagogue leader’s daughter, saying to her: “My child, arise!” (Mk 5,41). He took her by the hand, as it is written. As God he gave her back her life by his all-powerful command and animated her also by contact with his holy flesh. Thus he bore witness that, in flesh as in his word, one and the same divine energy was at work. In the same way, too, when he came to a town called Nain where the widow’s only son was being buried, he touched the coffin, saying: “Young man, I tell you, arise!” (Lk 7,14).
Thus he not only conferred to his word the power to raise the dead, but he even touched the dead to show that his body is life-giving and, through his flesh, he caused life to pass into their corpses. If the touch alone of his sacred flesh restores life to a corrupting body, what profit shall we not discover in his life-giving eucharist when we make of it our food? It will wholly transform in its own property, which is immortality, those who participate in it.
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St. José Maria Escriva de Balaguer
from Homily in Amigos de Dios
“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give” (Mt 10,8)
When Jesus put out to sea with his disciples he wasn’t just thinking of that particular fishing expedition. That is why… he said to Peter: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men”. And divine effectiveness will not be lacking in the case of this new kind of fishing, either: the apostles will become the agents of great marvels in spite of their personal failings.
And we, too, if we struggle daily to acquire sanctity in our day to day lives, each according to our own condition in the midst of the world and the exercise of our professions, then I venture to affirm that our Lord will make instruments of us, capable of accomplishing miracles, even the most exceptional ones if needs be. We will give light to the blind.
Which of us could not tell of a thousand examples of the way in which someone blind, almost from their birth, has regained their sight and received the light of Christ in all its splendor? Someone else was deaf and another dumb, unable to understand or articulate a single word as children of God…: now they understand and express themselves like adults… “In the name of Jesus” the apostles give strength back to a sick man who was incapable of all useful action… “In the name of the Lord, stand up and walk!” (Acts 3,6). Another, a dead man who already had a stench, heard God’s voice as at the time of the miracle of the widow of Naim’s son: “Young man, I tell you, arise!” (Lk 7,14; Acts 9,40; cf. Jn 11).
We will work miracles like Christ, miracles like the first apostles. Perhaps these wonders have happened in you, in me: perhaps we were blind or deaf or sick or smelt of death when the Word of God snatched us from our prostration. If we love Christ, if we follow him definitively, if he alone is the one we seek and not our own selves, then in his name we will be able to give without cost what we have received without cost.
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St. Caesarius of Arles
from Morin Sermon 26, §2-5 (PLS IV*, 297-299)
“Jesus saw the vast crowd; his heart was moved with pity”
The true kindness in the heavens (cf. Ps 36[35],6) is Christ our Lord. How gentle and good is that which, without anyone looking for it, freely came down from heaven and humbled itself that it might raise us up…
Christ promised to be with us until the end of time, as he himself said in the Gospel: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt 28,20). Look at his kindness, my brethren: even now he is in heaven at the right hand of the Father and yet he still longs to toil together with us on earth. He wants to be hungry and thirsty with us, to suffer with us, to be a stranger with us, and he does not even shrink from dying and being put into prison with us (Mt 25,35f.)… See what his love for us is like: in his unspeakable tenderness he desires to undergo within us all these evils.
Yes, the true kindness from the heavens, that is to say Christ our Lord, created you when you did not as yet exist, sought you when you were lost, ransomed you when you were sold… And now again, every day, Christ deigns to be incorporated into humankind. But, alas, not everyone is willing to open the door of their heart.
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St. Augustine
from Sermon 279
Persecutor transformed into preacher
From heaven’s height Christ’s voice overturned Saul. He received a command to carry out his persecutions no more and fell face downwards to the ground. He had first to be knocked down and afterwards raised up; first struck, then healed. For Christ would never have come to live in him if Saul had not died to his former life of sin.
Cast down to the earth in this way, what was it he heard? “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad” (Acts 26,14). And he replied: “Who are you, Lord?” Then the voice from on high continued: “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting”. The members are still on the ground while the head cries out from the heights of heaven. It is not saying: “Why are you persecuting my servants?” but “Why are you persecuting me?”
And Paul, who had put all his energy into his persecuting, is already preparing to obey: “What do you want me to do?” The persecutor is already transformed into preacher, the wolf has become a sheep, the enemy a defender. Paul learns what he is to do: if he has become blind, if this world’s light is held back from him for a while, it is so as to make the light within shine in his heart.
Light is taken away from the persecutor so that it may be given to the preacher; at the very moment he no longer saw anything of this world, he saw Jesus. This symbolizes the believer: those who believe in Christ must fix the eyes of their soul on him without paying attention to outward things…
So Saul was led to Ananias; the ravaging wolf is led to the sheep. But the Shepherd, who guides everything from heaven above, reassures it…: “Don’t worry. I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name” (Acts 9,16). What wonder is this! The wolf is led, a captive, to the sheep… The Lamb who died for the sheep teaches them not to be afraid any more.
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Hugh of St. Victor
from Treatise on the Sacraments of Christian Faith, II, 1-2 (PL 176, 415)
“In the power of the Spirit”
Holy Church is the body of Christ: one Spirit quickens her, gives her unity in faith and sanctifies her. For members this body has believers, who together form one body because of the one Spirit and one faith…
And so what belongs to each is not possessed for self alone, for he, who so generously bestows his possessions on us and shares them out so wisely, desires that each thing should belong to all and all to each. If someone has the happiness, then, of receiving a gift of God’s grace, he should know that what he has does not belong only to him, even if he is the only one to have it.
It is by analogy with the human body that Holy Church, namely the body of believers, is called the body of Christ. Because she has also received Christ’s Spirit, whose presence within the individual is indicated by the name “christian” that Christ gives. Indeed, this name designates Christ’s members, those who share the Spirit of Christ, who receive the anointing of the anointed one.
For the name christian comes from Christ, and “Christ” means “anointed”: anointed with the same oil of joy that he received in all its fullness above all his fellows (Ps 45[44],8), so that he might share it out among all his friends as the head does to each of the body’s members. “It is as when the precious ointment upon the head runs down over the beard… till it runs down upon the collar of the robe” (Ps 133[132],2) to spill over everything and bring all to life.
So when you become a Christian, you become a member of Christ, a member of Christ’s body, sharing in the Spirit of Christ.
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St. Thomas Aquinas
from Instructions for the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ
Jesus gives himself wholly, even to his body and blood
The enormous blessings with which our Lord has lavishly gifted his christian people raise them to an immeasurable dignity. Indeed, there is not, and never has been, a nation whose gods were so close as our God is to us (cf. Dt 4,7). God’s only Son, intending to make us participators in his divinity, assumed our nature and became man to make us divine. All that he borrowed from us he placed at the service of our salvation. For he offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross for our reconciliation, and he shed his blood as a ransom to reclaim us from our condition of slavery and purify us from all our sins through the washing of regeneration.
To believers he has left his body as food and blood as drink under the species of bread and wine, so that the remembrance of such great blessing might remain continually amongst us. O wonderful and precious feast that conveys salvation and contains sweetness in its all its fullness! What could there be more precious than this meal where, not the flesh of calves and bulls, but Christ, true God, is offered us?
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St. Irenaeus of Lyons
from Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 92-95
“Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him”
That he was going to be manifested to us – for the Son of God became the Son of man – and to be found amongst us, who before had no knowledge of him, the Word himself says in Isaiah, thus, “I became manifest to those that sought me not; I was found by those that asked not for me. I said: ‘Behold, I am here,’ to a nation that called not upon my name” (Is 65,1)…
This is what was also said by John the Baptist: “God is able from stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Mt 3,9). For our hearts, drawn out by faith from the worship of stones, see God and become children of Abraham, who was made righteous by faith…
His disciples John also says: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” (Jn 1,14). For which reason the Church bears as fruit so great a number of the saved; for it is no longer an intercessor, Moses, nor an angel, Elias, but the Lord himself who saves us, bestowing a greater number of children on the Church than on the former synagogue, as Isaiah announced, saying: “Rejoice, O barren one who did not bear” (Is 54,1; Gal 4,27)…
God was pleased to bestow his inheritance on the foolish Gentiles, who were neither of the citizenship of God nor knew who God is. Since, then, by this calling, life has been given and God has recapitulated in us the faith of Abraham, we should no longer turn back, that is, I mean, to the former legislation. For we received the Lord of the Law, the Son of God, and through faith in him we learn to love God with our whole heart and our neighbor as ourselves.
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St. Leo the Great
from First Sermon for the Nativity of the Lord (PL 59,190 [cf. SC 22 bis, p. 67f., breviary])
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”
This is the day our Saviour was born: what a joy for us, my beloved! This is no season for sadness, this, the birthday of Life-the Life which annihilates the fear of death, and engenders joy, promising, as it does, immortality. Nobody is an outsider to this happiness. The same cause for joy is common to all, for our Lord… came with redemption for all. Let the saint rejoice, for he hastens to his crown; let the sinner be filled with joy, for pardon is offered him; let the Gentile be emboldened, for he is called to life. When the designated time had come, which God in his deep and impenetrable plan had fixed upon, God’s Son took the nature of man upon himself in order to reconcile man to his Creator…
The Word, God’s Speech, who is God, the Son of God “who was in the beginning with God; through whom all things came to be, and without whom nothing came to be”, has become man to deliver man from eternal death. He humbled himself to assume our mortal condition yet without diminution to his greatness. Remaining what he was and assuming what he was not, he united our condition of a slave to his condition of equality with God the Father… Greatness was clothed with humility, strength with weakness, eternity with mortality: true God and true man, in the unity of a single Lord, “the one mediator between God and the human race” (1Tm 2,5)…
My beloved, let us offer thanksgiving to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. In the great mercy with which he loved us, he had pity on us, and “in giving life to Christ, gave life to us too, when we were dead through sin,” so that in him we might be a new creation, a new work of his hands (Ep 2,4-5; 2Co 5,17)… O Christian, be aware of your nobility!
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St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross [Edith Stein] from Meditation for the 6 January 1941
The Holy Innocents, poor as Christ is poor
Not far from Stephen, the first martyr, stand the “flores martyrum”, the tender buds that were broken before they had ripened to the act of sacrifice. There is a pious belief that the grace of natural maturity came to the innocent children beforehand and gave them an understanding of what was happening to them so they could give themselves freely and thus be ensured martyrdom. Even so, they do not resemble the valiant confessor who heroically took on the cause of Christ. In their defenseless surrender, they are much more like lambs led to the slaughter (Is 53,7; Ac 8,32).
So they are the example of uttermost poverty. They have no other goods than their lives. And now even that is taken from them, and they allow it to happen without resistance. They surround the manger to show us what kind of myrrh we are to bring to the Divine Child: those who want to belong entirely to him must deliver themselves to him in complete self-renunciation; they must surrender to the divine decision like these children.
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St. John Chrysostom
From Homilies on the 1st letter to the Corinthians, 24, 4 (PG 61, 204)
“He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them saying: ‘This is my body'” (Lk 22,19)
Christ gave us his flesh to eat in order to deepen our love for him. When we approach him, then, there should be burning within us a fire of love and longing… The wise men paid homage to Christ’s body even when it was lying in a manger… They only saw Christ in a manger, they saw nothing of what you now see, and yet they approached him with profound awe and reverence.
You see him, not in a manger but on an altar, not carried by a woman but offered by a priest; and you see the Spirit bountifully poured out upon the offerings of bread and wine. Unlike the wise men, you do not merely see Christ’s body: you know his power as well, and the whole divine plan for our salvation… Let us then awaken in ourselves a feeling of awe and let us show a far greater reverence than did those foreigners so that we do not approach this sacrament casually, without thinking of what we do…
This food strengthens us; it emboldens us to speak freely to our God; if is our hope, our salvation, our light and our life. If we go to the next world fortified by this sacrifice, we shall enter its sacred portals with perfect confidence as though protected all over by armor of gold. But why do I speak of the next world?
Because of this sacrament earth becomes heaven for you. Throw open the gates of heaven, look through and you will see the proof of what I say. What is heaven’s most precious possession? I will show you it here on earth. I do not show you angels or archangels, heaven or the heaven of heavens, but I show you the very Lord of all these. Do you not see how you gaze, here on earth, upon what is most precious of all? You not only gaze on it but touch it as well. You not only touch it but eat it. So cleanse your soul from sin and prepare your mind to receive these mysteries.
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Rupert of Deutz
from On the Trinity and its Works, l. 42: On Isaiah, 2
“On the people who sit in darkness who have seen a great light”
In speaking of vision, or rather of a great light, Matthew undoubtedly intends us to understand our Savior’s luminous preaching, the radiance of the Good News of the Kingdom of God. The land of Zebulon and of Naphtali heard it from our Lord’s own mouth before anyone else…
For in fact it was in this particular land that our Lord began to preach; it was there his preaching was inaugurated… And the apostles, who were the first to see this true light over these regions of Zabulon and Naphtali, themselves became “lights of the world”… As Isaiah’s text continues: “They rejoice before you as at the harvest, as men make merry when dividing the spoils” This joy will indeed become the apostles’ joy, it will be a twofold joy when “they come back like reapers carrying their sheaves” and “as conquerors sharing the spoil”, that is to say of the conquered devil…
For it was you, our Lord and Savior, who removed from their shoulders “the yoke that burdened them”, that yoke of the devil’s who in former times lorded it over the world when he reigned over all the nations and caused their necks to bow beneath the yoke of a grievous slavery… You it was who, without troops, without bloodshed, in the secret of your power, freed us to place us at your service…
Yes, the devil will be “burned as fuel for the flames” because “a child is born to us”, the lowly Son of God “upon whose shoulders dominion rests” because, being God, he is able to possess the pre-eminence by his own strength… And his “dominion extends” since he will not only reign over the Jews, as David did, but he will have the sovereignty over all nations “both now and forever”.
(Biblical references: Is 9,1-6; Mt 5,14; Ps 126[125],6).
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St. Alphonsus Liguori
from Address for the Ninth Day of Christmas, no. 10
“I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people”
“I proclaim to you news of great joy.” These were the angel’s words to the shepherds of Bethlehem. I will repeat them to you today, my faithful friends: I am bringing you news that should give you great joy. For poor exiles, condemned to death, could there be happier news than that of their Savior’s appearing, who came not just to deliver them from death but to win for them their return to their homeland? Yet this is precisely what I am proclaiming to you: “A Savior is born to you”…
When a king first makes his entry into one of the towns in his kingdom, the greatest honors are showered on him: what decorations! what triumphal arches! Make yourself ready, then, to receive your King worthily, O happy Bethlehem… Know, the prophet says to you, that of all the cities of the earth you are the most favored, for the heavenly King has chosen you as his birthplace here below that he may later reign, not only over Judah, but over men’s hearts everwhere…
What will the angels have said on seeing the Mother of God enter a cave to give birth to the King of kings! Princely infants come into the world in bedchambers glittering with gold. They are surrounded by the highest dignitaries in the kingdom. But the King of heaven wished to be born in a cold, unheated stable; for covering he had only poor sheepskin; to rest his limbs only a wretched manger with a little straw…
Ah! Simply to think of the birth of Jesus Christ and the circumstances that accompanied it should enflame us with love. And for us, the mere words ‘cave’, ‘manger’, ‘straw’, ‘milk’, ‘cry’, representing the Child of Bethlehem before our eyes as they do, should be so many burning arrows wounding all our hearts with love. O blessed cave, manger and straw! But even more blessed still those souls who fervently and tenderly cherish this loveworthy Lord and who, enflamed with burning charity, receive him in holy communion. With what alacrity and joy does Jesus come to rest in the soul who truly loves him!
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Homily attributed to St. Gregory the Wonderworker
from Homily on the Holy Theophany, 4 (PG 10, 1181)
“He spoke blessing God”
[John the Baptist said:] “I am the voice, the voice crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord”. So I cannot be silent, Lord, in your presence. “I need to be baptized by you, and do You come to me?” (Mt 3,3.14). At my birth I took away my mother’s barrenness, and while still an infant I healed my father’s dumbness, for you gave me in childhood the gift of working miracles. But when you were born of the Virgin Mary, in the way you willed and in a manner known to you alone, you did not take away her virginity, but while preserving it intact you gave her in addition the name of “mother.” Her virginity did not hinder your birth, nor did your birth destroy her virginity. On the contrary, two opposites, motherhood and virginity, were easily united by you, because the laws of nature have their origin in you.I am a mere man, sharing in the grace of God, but you are both God and man because of your love for humankind (cf. Wis 1,6).
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St. Bede the Venerable
from Homilies on the Gospel, I, 4 (CCL 122, 25f)
“My spirit rejoices in God my savior”
“My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”. The first interpretation of these words is undoubtedly to acknowledge the gifts granted to her, to Mary in particular, by God. But then she recalls the universal blessing with which God never ceases to surround the human race.
The soul glorifies the Lord when it consecrates all its inner powers on praising and serving God and when, by its submission to the divine commands, it proves that it never loses sight of his power and majesty. The spirit rejoices in God its Savior when it places all its joy in the remembrance of its Creator, from whom it hopes for eternal salvation.
Without doubt these words exactly express the thought of all the saints, but it was most especially fitting they should be spoken by the blessed Mother of God who, filled with a special privilege, burned with a wholly spiritual love for the one she had the joy of conceiving in her flesh. More than any other saint she had good reason to rejoice in Jesus – that is to say, in her Savior – because he whom she acknowledged to be the eternal author of our salvation would in time, as she knew, be born in his own flesh and with such authenticity that in one and the same person her son and her God would be truly present…
Hence it is a praiseworthy and salutary custom, whose fragrance perfumes Holy Church, when every day at Vespers we sing the Canticle of the Virgin. We may well expect from this that the souls of the faithful, by so often calling to mind the Lord’s incarnation, will be enflamed with even greater fervor and that such a frequent reminder of his holy Mother’s example will strengthen them in virtue. And Vespers is the best time to come back to this song since our souls, tired by the day and drawn this way and that by the day’s thoughts, need to come back together again when the hour of rest draws near so that they may find once more their singleness of focus.
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Origen
from Sermon 15 on St Luke’s Gospel ; (PG 13, 1838-1839 [cf SC 87])
“To depart in peace”
Simeon knew there was no one who could take us out of the prison house of our bodies in hope of the life to come except he whom he held in his arms. And so he said to him: “Now, Lord, let your servant depart in peace, for while I was not carrying Christ and embracing him in my arms I was held like a prisoner, unable to free myself from my bonds.” And it should be noted that this doesn’t only apply to Simeon but to everyone. If anyone wants to abandon the world and gain the Kingdom, let them take Jesus in their hands, wrap their arms around him, hug him to their bosom. Then they will be able to walk joyously wherever they wish…
“All those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Rom 8,14). It was the Holy Spirit, then, who led Simeon into the Temple. So if you, too, want to hold Jesus, wrap your arms around him and become worthy of leaving your prison, strive to let yourself be led by the Spirit into the temple of God. Now see how, even now, you are in the temple of our Lord Jesus, namely his Church: his temple built of living stones (1Pt 2,5)…
So if you enter the Temple impelled by the Spirit, you will find the Child Jesus, will take him into your arms and will say: “Now, Lord, let your servant depart in peace”. This deliverance, this departure take place in peace… Who are they who die in peace if not those who possess the peace of God that surpasses all knowledge and keeps the hearts of those who to whom it belongs? (Phil 4,7). And who are they who leave this world in peace if not those who understand that God was in Christ reconciling the world?
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St. Peter Chrysologus
from Sermon 147, on the Mystery of the Incarnation
Now at last Anna sees God in his TempleAs for this God whom the world cannot contain, how could man comprehend him, shortsighted as he is? Love is not worried about knowing whether something is certain or convenient or possible. Love… pays no attention to limits. It does not comfort itself with the claim that it is impossible; difficulties cannot stop it… Love cannot not see what it loves…
How can we believe ourselves loved by God without contemplating him? Thus love that desires to see God, even if not rationalized, is inspired by the heart’s intuition. Hence Moses dared to say: “If I have found favor with you, show me your face” (Ex 33,13f.), and the psalmist: “Show me your face” (cf. 80[79],4)…
God, then, knowing our desire to see him, found a means of making himself visible which would be greatly to the gain of earth’s inhabitants without, for all that, involving a lowering with regard to heaven. How could the creature God had made on earth in his own likeness pass into heaven by means of baseness? “Let us make man in our image and likeness” he had said (Gn 1,26)…
If God had borrowed an angel’s form from heaven he would have remained just as invisible; on the other hand, if he had become incarnate on earth in a nature inferior to that of ours, he would have demeaned the divinity and cast man down rather than lifting him up. So, my beloved, let no one consider the fact that he came to men by means of a man or that he found this means amongst us of being our seeing him to be an insult to God.
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St. Bede the Venerable
from Homilies on the Gospel, I, 4 (CCL 122, 25f.)
“My spirit rejoices in God my savior”
“My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”. The first interpretation of these words is undoubtedly to acknowledge the gifts granted to her, to Mary in particular, by God. But then she recalls the universal blessing with which God never ceases to surround the human race.
The soul glorifies the Lord when it consecrates all its inner powers on praising and serving God and when, by its submission to the divine commands, it proves that it never loses sight of his power and majesty. The spirit rejoices in God its Savior when it places all its joy in the remembrance of its Creator, from whom it hopes for eternal salvation.
Without doubt these words exactly express the thought of all the saints, but it was most especially fitting they should be spoken by the blessed Mother of God who, filled with a special privilege, burned with a wholly spiritual love for the one she had the joy of conceiving in her flesh.
More than any other saint she had good reason to rejoice in Jesus – that is to say, in her Savior – because he whom she acknowledged to be the eternal author of our salvation would in time, as she knew, be born in his own flesh and with such authenticity that in one and the same person her son and her God would be truly present…
Hence it is a praiseworthy and salutary custom, whose fragrance perfumes Holy Church, when every day at Vespers we sing the Canticle of the Virgin. We may well expect from this that the souls of the faithful, by so often calling to mind the Lord’s incarnation, will be enflamed with even greater fervor and that such a frequent reminder of his holy Mother’s example will strengthen them in virtue. And Vespers is the best time to come back to this song since our souls, tired by the day and drawn this way and that by the day’s thoughts, need to come back together again when the hour of rest draws near so that they may find once more their singleness of focus.
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William of St.-Thierry
from On Contemplating God, 10 (SC 61, p. 91f.)
“The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
You first loved us so that we might love you. And that was not because you needed to be loved by us, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you. “Having then in many ways and on various occasions spoken to the fathers by the prophets, now in these last days you have spoken to us in the Son”, your Word (Heb 1,1), by whom “The heavens were established, and all the power of them by the breath of his mouth” (Ps 33[32],6).
For you to speak thus in your Son was an open declaration, a “setting in the sun” as it were, of how much and in what sort of way you loved us, in that you “spared not your own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Rm 8,32). Yes, and he himself floved us and gave himself for us (Gal 2,20)
This, Lord, is your word to us, this is your all-powerful message: he who, while all things kept silence (that is, were in the depths of error), came from the royal throne (Cant 18,14), the stern opponent of error and the gentle apostle of love. And everything he did and everything he said on earth, even the insults, the spitting, the buffeting, the cross and the grave, all that was nothing but yourself speaking in the Son, appealing to us by your love, and stirring up our love for you.
For you, O God, our souls’ Creator, knew that this affection cannot be forced in the souls of the sons of men, but has to be evoked. And this is for the obvious reason that there is no freedom where there is compulsion, and, where freedom is lacking, so too is righteousness…
We could not with justice have been saved, had we not loved you, nor could we have loved you, save by your gift. You willed, therefore, that we should love you. So, Lord, as the Apostle of your love tells us, and as we ourselves have said before, you “first loved us” (1Jn 4,10) and you love all your lovers first. But we on our part hold you dear by the affection of love that you have implanted in us.
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Duns Scotus Erigena
from Homily on St John’s Prologue, ch. 15
“There is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me”
Into the theological plan of his gospel John the evangelist draws John the Baptist; “deep calls to deep” (Ps 42[41],8) at the utterance of divine mysteries. We hear the evangelist relating the story of the forerunner, the man whose gift it was to know the Word “as he was in the beginning” (Jn 1,1), speaking to us of the one who was commissioned to go ahead of the Word made flesh…
“There was,” says the evangelist, not simply a messenger of God, but “a man” (Jn 1,6). This he said in order to distinguish the man who shared only the humanity of the one he heralded from the Man who came after him, the Man who united godhead and manhood in his own Person.
The evangelist’s intention was to differentiate between the fleeting voice and the eternally unchanging Word. The one, he would suggest, was the morning star appearing at the dawning of the kingdom of heaven, while the other was the Sun of Justice coming in its wake (Mal 3,20). He distinguished the witness from the one to whom he testified, the messenger from him who sent him, the lamp burning in the night from the brilliant light that filled the whole world (cf. Jn 5,35), the light that dispelled the darkness of death and sin from the entire human race…
A man was sent. By whom? By the divine Word, whose forerunner he was. To go before the Lord was his mission. Lifting up his voice, this man called out: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness!” (Mt 3,3). It was the herald preparing the way for the Lord’s coming. “John was his name” (Jn 1,6); John to whom was given the grace to go ahead of the King of kings, to point out to the world the Word made flesh, to baptize him with that baptism in which the Spirit would manifest his divine Sonship, to give witness through his teaching and martyrdom to the eternal light.
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St. Alphonsus Liguori
from Meditations for the Octave of Epiphany, 1
“They saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage”
The magi find a poor young woman with a poor child wrapped in poor linen bands… and yet, on entering this cave, they feel a joy never experienced before… The divine Infant’s expression becomes joyful: a sign of the loving delight with which he welcomes them as the first conquest of his redeeming work. Then the holy kings turn their eyes to Mary, who does not speak, remaining silent; yet her face, reflecting joy and shining with a heavenly sweetness, confirms that she welcomes them and is grateful to them for being the first to recognise her Son for who he is: their Sovereign Lord…
O Child so worthy of our love, I see you lying on the straw in this cave, so poor and despised. Yet faith teaches me that you are my God come down from heaven for my salvation. I acknowledge you as my Sovereign Lord and Savior, as such I proclaim you, yet I have nothing at all to offer you. I am without love’s gold since I have given my love to the things of this world – I have only loved my own whim rather than loving you, so infinitely worthy of love. I am without prayer’s incense since I have lived wretchedly without thinking of you. I have no myrrh of mortification since, so as not to forsake some paltry pleasures, I have so often saddened your infinite goodness. So what am I to offer you?
O my Jesus, I offer you my heart, soiled and naked as it is. Take it and change it, for you have come down to us to wash our guilty hearts with your blood and so to transform us from sinners into saints. O grant me that gold, incense and myrrh that I lack. Grant me the gold of your holy love; grant me the incense that is the spirit of prayer; grant me myrrh, the willingness and strength to deny myself in all that displeases you…
O holy Virgin, you welcomed those devout magi kings with keen affection and satisfied them. Deign to welcome and comfort me also: I who come, following their example, to visit and offer myself to your Son.
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From a Homily attributed to St. John Chrysostom
“The infant in my womb leaped for joy”
O what a novel and wonderful mystery! John has not yet been born but already he gives voice with his bounds; he has not yet appeared but already he manifests signs of his presence; he cannot yet cry and already he is heard through what he does; as yet he has not begun his life and already he is preaching about God; he does not yet see the light and is already pointing to the sun; he has not yet been brought forth and already he hastens to act as forerunner.
The Lord is there! John cannot restrain himself; he is not going to be restricted by the limitations set by nature but strives to break out of the prison of his mother’s womb and make known beforehand the Savior’s coming. “He who breaks our bonds has come,” he says. “and am I to remain shackled? Am I still bound to remain here? The Word comes to re-establish all things and am I still to remain captive? I will come out and run ahead of him and announce to all: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1,29).
But tell us, John, held fast as you are in the darkness of your mother’s womb, how is it that you see and hear? How can you behold divine things? How can you be leaping and rejoicing?
“The mystery that is taking place is great indeed,” he says. “It is something beyond human understanding. It is with good reason that I am doing something new in the natural order on behalf of him who is to do something new in the supernatural order. I see even before my birth because I see the Sun of Justice gestating (Mal 3,20). I perceive by ear because, in coming into the world, I myself am the voice that goes before the great Word. I cry out because I behold the only Son of the Father clothed in his flesh. I rejoice because I see the world’s Creator receive human form. I leap for joy when I think that the Redeemer of the world has taken a human body. I am the forerunner of his coming and precede your testimony with my own.
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Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
from Jesus, the Word to Be Spoken
“Mary set out… in haste”
Our Lady’s strength was her gaiety and joy. This is what made her God, her son’s, attentive servant because as soon as he came to her she “set out in haste”. Joy alone could have given her the strength to set out in all haste across the hill country of Judah to become the servant of her cousin. It is just the same for us. Like her, we must be true servants of the Lord and after holy communion each day we must hurry over the mountains of the difficulties we encounter, offering our service to the poor with all our heart. Give to Jesus in the poor as a servant of the Lord.
Joy is prayer, joy is strength, joy is love. It is love’s net with which to catch souls. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2Cor 9,7). Those who give with joy give twice over. If you meet up with difficulties and accept them with joy, with a big smile, in this as in many other things people will realize that your works are good and the Father will be glorified in them. The best way of showing God and others your gratitude is to accept everything with joy. A joyful heart comes from a heart that is burning with love.
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St. Ephrem
from Diatessaron, 1, 11-13 (SC 127, p. 49 rev.)
“Zechariah went home. After this time his wife Elizabeth conceived”
The angel said to him: “God has heard the voice of your prayer”. If Zechariah believed his prayer would be heard then he prayed well; if he did not believe, he prayed badly. His prayer was about to be answered, yet he doubted. Therefore it was reasonable that at that very moment the word was removed from him. Beforehand he was praying for a son but the instant his prayer was answered he turned around and said: “How can this be?” Because it was with his mouth that he cast doubts on his prayer, it was his speech he lost …
So long as Zechariah believed, he spoke; as soon as he ceased to believe, he was silent. So long as he believed, he spoke: “I believed and therefore I spoke” (Ps 116[115],10). Because he rejected the angel’s word, this word plagued him so that he would respect with his silence the word he had rejected.
It was fitting that the mouth that said: “How shall this be?” should be silenced so that it might learn the possibility of a miracle. The unbound tongue was bound so that it might learn that He who had bound the tongue was capable of unbinding the womb. In this way experience taught him who had not accepted the teaching of faith… Thus he learned that he who had closed an open mouth could open a closed womb.
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St. Leo the Great
from Letter 31 (PL 54, 791)
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ”
It is of no avail to say that our Lord, the Son of the blessed Virgin Mary, was true and perfect man unless we believe that he is so in the way that the Gospel declares. For Matthew says: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” and follows the order of his human origin so as to bring the lines of his ancestry down to Joseph, to whom the Lord’s mother was espoused. Whereas Luke, going backwards step by step, traces his succession to the first of the human race to show that the first Adam and the last Adam were of the same nature (3,23f.).
No doubt the Almighty Son of God could have appeared for the purpose of teaching and justifying in exactly the same way as he appeared, in the semblance of flesh, to the patriarchs and prophets: for instance, when he wrestled with Jacob (Gn 32,25) or engaged in a conversation with Abraham, not refusing his hospitality and even partaking of the food set before him (Gn 18). But these appearances were indications of that man whose reality they manifested, assumed from the stock of those same ancestors.
But the fulfilment of the mystery of our redemption, ordained from all eternity, was not assisted by any images because the Holy Spirit had not yet come down on the Virgin and the power of the Most High had not overshadowed her (Lk 1,35). Wisdom had not yet built herself a house within her undefiled body so that the Word might there become flesh and, the form of God and the form of a slave coming together in one person, the Creator of time might be born in time and he himself, through whom all things were made, might be brought forth in the midst of all things.
For if the New Man had not been made in the likeness of sinful flesh and taken our old nature on himself and, being consubstantial with the Father, had deigned to be consubstantial with his mother also – yet without sin – the whole human race would be held captive under the devil’s yoke and we should not be able to make use of the Conqueror’s victory because it would have been won outside our nature. But it was from Christ’s marvellous sharing of our nature that the mystery of regeneration shone upon us.
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St. Gregory of Agrigente
from Commentary on Ecclesiastes, 10, 2
“The poor have the good news proclaimed to them”
The sun’s light as seen by our bodily eyes proclaims the spiritual sun, the “Sun of Justice” (Mal 3,20). This was truly the gentlest of suns to have arisen on those who, at that time, had the happiness of being his disciples and of seeing him with their own eyes while he was sharing man’s life as though he were an ordinary man. And yet, by nature, he was also truly God, which was why he was capable of restoring sight to the blind, of making the lame to walk and the deaf to hear; he cleansed lepers and, with a word, brought back the dead to life.
And now, too, there is truly nothing sweeter that to fix our spiritual eyes on him so as to contemplate and picture to ourselves his inexpressible, divine beauty. There is nothing sweeter than to be enlightened and made beautiful by this participation and communion in the light, to have one’s heart softened, one’s soul sanctified, and to be filled with a holy joy all the days of this present life…
Truly, this Sun of justice is, for those who gaze at it, the transmitter of joy according to the prophecy of David: “The just rejoice and exult before God; they are glad and rejoice!” And again: “Exult you just in the Lord; praise from the upright is fitting!” (Ps 68[67],4; 33[32],1).
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Blessed Guerric of Igny
from 5th sermon for Advent
Repenting at John the Baptist’s cry as he prepares the way of the Lord
And now, with your indulgence, I cannot resist recalling the praises with which Isaiah foretold this way of the Lord’s precepts… “And there will be there…”, he says, “in the terrible, trackless wastes, a path and a way… And it shall be called the holy way” (Is 35,7-8); holy, because it is the sanctification of sinners and the salvation of those who were lost…
“The unclean shall not pass over it.” But surely, Isaiah, those who are unclean will not therefore have to travel by another way? Certainly not: all must come to this one way and travel by it. For Christ, who “came to seek and save what had fallen” (Lc 19,10)… has laid down this way especially for the unclean. Does this mean then that the unclean will travel along the holy way? Not at all.
However unclean a man is when he reaches it, he will no longer be unclean when he travels along it because once he starts along it he is already cleansed. The holy way does admit a man defiled, but immediately cleanses all admitted to it, because it cleanses the faults that have been committed… And that is why this way admits the defiled but does not let him travel along it in that state. The way is constricted and is like the “eye of the needle” (Mt 7,14; 19,24)…
If you are on the way then fear only one thing: lest you leave it, lest you offend the Lord who leads you along it so that he would abandon you to wander in “the way of your own heart” (Is 57,17)… If you feel that the way is too narrow look forward to the end to which it leads you…
If you cannot see so far, believe Isaiah who could; he is your eye. He must have seen, for he described the consequences: “Behold,” he says, “the redeemed shall walk by this way and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain also joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (35,9-10).
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St. Thomas Aquinas
from Commentary on St. John’s Gospel, 4, 1
Witness to God
Every creature has been made to witness to God since all creatures are, as it were, evidence of his goodness. The greatness of creation bears witness in its own way to the divine strength and almighty power, and its beauty to the divine wisdom. Some people receive a special mission from God: they not only bear witness to God from a natural point of view, by the fact of their existence, but even more from a spiritual one through their good works…
However, those who, not content with receiving divine gifts and carrying out good deeds by God’s grace, pass on these gifts to others by word, encouragement and admonition are even more particularly God’s witnesses. One of these witness was John; he came to spread God’s gifts and proclaim his praises.
This mission of John’s, his role as witness, is of unsurpassing greatness since no one can bear witness to something except insofar as they participate in it. Jesus said: “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen” (Jn 3,11). To bear witness to divine truth presupposes that one knows that truth.
That is why Christ also possessed this role of witness: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (Jn 18,37). However Christ and John possessed this role in different ways. Christ possessed this light in himself – more, he was this light – whereas John merely participated in it. That is why Christ bears a witness that is complete; he fully manifests the truth. John, and the other saints, only do so in the measure that they receive this truth.
John’s sublime mission implies his participation in the light of God and his likeness to Christ who, himself, carried out this mission.
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St. Maximus of Turin
from Sermon 88
“One mightier than I is coming”
It was not only in his own time that John was speaking when he proclaimed the Lord to the Pharisees, saying: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” (Mt 3,3), but he cries out in us today, and the thunder of his voice shakes the desert of our sins. Even now, when he is entombed in a martyr’s sleep, his voice continues to ring out. Even today he says to us: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths”…
John the Baptist, then, commanded the preparation of the way of the Lord. Let us see which road he has prepared for our Savior. He has perfectly marked out and has appointed from start to finish the way for Christ’s coming since in everything he was sober, humble, restrained and chaste.
It was in description of all these virtues of his that the evangelist said: “John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey” (Mt 3,4).
What greater sign could there be of a prophet’s humility than his rejection of soft garments to clothe himself in a rough hide? What greater indication of faith than to be always at the ready for all the duties of service, a simple loincloth around his hips? What more stunning sign of his abstinence than his renunciation of the pleasures of this life to feed himself on locusts and wild honey?
In my view, all these different forms of the prophet’s behavior were themselves prophetic. When Christ’s messenger wore a rough garment of camel skin, didn’t this signify simply that Christ, at his coming, would reclothe our human bodies with their heavy covering, roughened by their sins?… The leather belt signifies that our weak flesh which, before the coming of Christ was turned to vice, would be guided by him to virtue.
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St. Cyril of Jerusalem
from Baptismal Catechesis 3
The new Elijah
Baptism was the end of the Old Testament as it is also the beginning of the New. Indeed, its promoter was John the Baptist, of whom “among those born of women there has been none greater” (Mt 11,11). John completed the succession of prophets, for “all the prophets and the Law prophesied up to the time of John” (Mt 11,13). And he began the era of the Gospel, as it is written: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ… John appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism” (Mk 1,1.4).
Would you contrast him with Elijah the Tishbite who was carried up into heaven? Yet even he was not superior to John. Enoch was transported to heaven but he is not greater than John; Moses was an important lawgiver in Israel; all the prophets were to be admired, but they were not greater than John.
It is not a question of comparing one prophet against another. But their Lord and ours, the Lord Jesus, said: “among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist” (Mt 11,11). There is an established similarity between the servant at the top and his fellow servants, but the superiority and grace of the Son besides his servants is without comparison.
So do you notice which man God chose to be the prime beneficiary of this grace? A poor man, who was a friend of the desert without, for all that, being opposed to other people. Eating locusts as he did, he gave wings to his soul. Sustained by honey, he uttered words sweeter and more beneficial than honey.
Wearing a garment of camel skin he demonstrated in his own person an example of hard trial. For he had been sanctified by the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb (Lk 1,15). Jeremiah was sanctified yet did not prophesy from the womb of his mother. John alone, imprisoned in the belly of his mother, leaped for joy (Lk 1,44); without as yet seeing with his fleshly eyes he nevertheless, guided by the Spirit, recognized his Lord. For the great grace of baptism a great leader was required.
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Latin Liturgy
Advent Hymn: Rorate caeli
Be converted to the repeated call of the God who comes
Be angry, Lord, no more with us; remember no longer our transgression. See the city of God laid waste and desolate: Zion is turned to wilderness, Jerusalem ravaged and ruined, your dwelling place and the Holy of holies, the house of your glory; silent are those voices now that once proclaimed your praise. Pour down, you heavens, from above and let the skies rain righteousness (cf. Is 64,8f.; 45,8)
We have gone astray; in the multitude of our sins we have been made unclean, fallen, fallen, stricken as the leaves of autumn. The stormwind carries us away, the tempest of our evil deeds; you have turned away from us the face of your mercy, and our iniquity has crushed us like a potter’s vessel. Pour down, you heavens, from above and let the skies rain righteousness (cf. Is 64,5f.)
O Lord our God, look upon your people in their affliction: be mindful of your promises. Send us the Lamb who will set up his dominion from the Rock of the wilderness to Zion, throned on her mountain. There is no other whose power can break our chains and set us free. Pour down, you heavens, from above and let the skies rain righteousness. (cf. Rv 5,12; Ps 78[77],15; Is 9,3)
Be comforted, be comforted, take heart, my people: you shall quickly see your salvation. Why do you waste yourself with grief though you have walked so long with sorrow? I am your Savior, be afraid no more. For am I not God, the Lord your God whom you worship, the Holy One of Israel, come to redeem you? Pour down, you heavens, from above and let the skies rain righteousness. (cf. Is 40,1f.)
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St. Gregory the Great
from Homily 20 on the Gospels, 14
“The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force”
John the Baptist counsels us to perform great works, telling us: “Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,” and, “He who has two tunics should share with one who has none, and he who has food should do likewise” (Lk 3,8.11). Is it not now evident what Truth means by saying: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force”?
We must examine these divine words very thoroughly. We must ask how the kingdom of heaven can suffer violence? Who inflicts violence in heaven? And we must also ask why, if the kingdom of heaven can suffer violence, it has endured violence from the days of John the Baptist, but not earlier?
The old Law… as a punishment has struck all sinners, but has not restored them to life through repentance. When John the Baptist became forerunner of our Redeemer’s grace, preaching repentance so that a sinner who was dead as a result of his sin might live by being converted, truly from his days the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence. What is the kingdom of heaven but the abode of the righteous?… The humble, the pure, the meek and the merciful reach the joys on high. But when anyone… after sinning turns to repentance, it is as if the sinner is entering a foreign place. And so… in proclaiming repentance to sinners, John teaches them to do violence to the kingdom of heaven.
Dearly beloved, let us think over the evils we have committed; let us give ourselves to continual sorrow. Let us seize by our repentance the inheritance of the righteous which we have not kept by our way of life. Almighty God desires to suffer this kind of violence from us. He desires us to seize by our tears the kingdom of heaven which is not owed us on our merits.
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St. Bernard
from First Sermon for Advent
“Curing every disease and every illness”
Brethren, you know who it is who is coming, now consider whence he comes and where he is going. He comes from the Father’s heart into the womb of the Virgin Mary. He comes from the heights of heaven into the lowest regions of the earth. What, then? Don’t we have to live on this earth? Yes indeed, provided he is dwelling there himself, for where will we be at ease without him? “Whom else have I in heaven but you, what can I desire on earth if not you, God of my heart and my portion forever?” (Ps 73[72],25-26).
Some great benefit must have been at stake for so high a majesty to condescend to come down from so far away into a resting place so unworthy of it. Indeed there was a great benefit at stake in that mercy, goodness and charity were revealed there in great and abundant measure.
For why did Jesus Christ come?… His words and deeds show us clearly. He came with great speed from the mountains to search for the hundredth sheep who was lost, to make his mercy towards the children of men shine forth.
He came for us. O wonderful condescension of the God who seeks! O wonderful dignity of the man thus sought! Recklessly can we take pride in this: not because we are something of ourselves but because he who has done it has valued us at so great a price! By comparison with this glory, all the riches and glory of the world and all we could possibly aim to achieve are worthless. What is man, O Lord, that you thus raise him up, that you set your heart on him?
It was for us to make our way towards Jesus Christ… Yet a double obstacle stood in our way: our eyes were so feeble and God dwells in inaccessible light (1Tm 6,16). Cripples lying on our stretchers, we were unable to reach a dwelling place so high as that of God. That is why our good Savior and sweet physician of our souls came down from on high where he dwells. He softened the brightness of his light for the sake of our eyes’ feebleness.
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St. Cyril of Alexandria
from On Isaiah, III, 3
“Prepare the way of the Lord”
“Let the desert and the parched land exult! Let the arid ground rejoice and bloom. Let it bloom with abundant flowers” (Is 35,1). What the inspired Scriptures usually call ‘desert’ and ‘waste’ is the Church of the pagans. She already existed in former times among the peoples but had not received her mystical Spouse from heaven, I mean the Christ…
Christ came to her, however. Captivated by her faith, he enriched her from the divine river that streams from him streams because it is the “fountain of life, stream of delight” (Ps 36[35],10.9)… At his presence the Church ceased to be parched and arid; she encountered her Spouse, brought into the world countless children and was adorned with mystical flowers…
Isaiah continues: “A pure way will be there, called the holy way” (v.8). This pure way is the power of the Gospel entering into our lives or, to put it another way, the purifying power of the Spirit. For the Spirit removes the stain imprinted on the human soul, delivers us from our sins and enables us to rise above our uncleanness.
Thus this road is very rightly described as holy and pure for it cannot be reached by anyone who has not been purified. Indeed no one is able to live according to the Gospel who has not first been purified by holy baptism, no one, therefore can do so without faith…
Only those delivered from the devil’s tyranny can lead the glorious life the prophet describes with these images: “No lion will be there nor beast of prey” (v.9) on that pure way. Indeed, in former times such fierce beasts as is the devil, that inventor of sin, used to attack earth’s inhabitants together with the evil spirits. But he was crushed by Christ, driven far away from the flock of believers and stripped of the dominion he used to wield over them.
That is why, redeemed by Christ and brought together in faith they will walk united in heart along this pure way (v.9). Forsaking their former ways “they will return to Zion”, that is the Church, “with everlasting joy” (v.10) that has no end whether on earth or in heaven, and they will glorify God their Savior..
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St. John Damascene
from Homily for the Nativity of the Virgin, 7, 10 [SC 80, p. 63 rev.]
“See I make all things new” (Rv 21,5)
Today the Creator of all things, the Word who is God, has composed a new work sprung from the Father’s heart, to be written as by a pen by the Spirit who is God’s tongue… Most holy daughter of Joachim and Anne! you who have evaded the attention of the Principalities and Powers and the “flaming arrows of the Evil One” (Col 1,16; Ep 6,16), you dwelt within the bridal chamber of the Spirit and were preserved undefiled so that you might become the bride of God and God’s Mother by nature…
God’s beloved daughter, the credit of your parents, generation after generation calls you blessed as you yourself so truthfully affirmed (Lk 1,48). Worthy daughter of God, our human nature’s beauty, restoration of Eve our first mother! For with your birth she who fell was raised…
For if, through the first Eve, “death entered the world” (Wis 2,24; Rom 5,12) because she put herself at the service of the serpent, yet Mary, who made herself servant of the divine will, deceived the deceiving serpent and brought immortality into the world.
You are more to be valued than the entire creation for from you alone the Creator received a share in the firstfruits of our humanity. His flesh was made of your flesh, his blood of your blood; God was nourished by your milk and your lips kissed the lips of God… In his foreknowledge of your dignity the God of all the world has loved you and, in accordance with his love for you, he predestined you and called you into being “in the final time” (1Pt 1,20; Heb 1,2)…
So let wise Solomon shut his mouth and say no more: “Nothing is new under the sun” (Eccl 1,9).
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Blessed Jan van Ruusbroec
from The Spiritual Espousals 1
“Come to me… for I am meek anad humble of heart”
The third coming of Christ our Bridegroom which is still in the future, is that which will occur at the Judgement or at the hour of death…
The justice of the Judge lies in the fact that it is Christ to whom the judgement and the verdict belong, for he is the Son of Man and the wisdom of the Father, a wisdom to whom all judgement belongs. To this wisdom all hearts are open and manifest, whether they are in heaven, on earth or in hell…
The means with which Christ, our bridegroom and judge, makes use at this judgement consist in rewarding and punishing with justice, for he gives to all according to their merits. On the good, and for each good deed carried out in God, he bestows the measureless reward of himself, unmerited by any creature. For indeed, since it is he who collaborates in each of the creature’s works, it is all thanks to his power that the creature merits Christ himself as reward in all justice…
The first coming, namely, when God became a human being, lived humbly, and died out of love for us, is one which we should imitate exteriorly through the perfect practice of the virtues and interiorly through charity and genuine humility. The second coming, which is in the present and which takes place when Christ comes with his graces into every loving heart, is one which we should desire and pray for every day, so that we might persevere and progress in new virtues. The third coming, at the Judgment or at the hour of our death, is one which we should await with longing, confidence, and awe, so that we might be released from this present misery and enter the palace of glory.
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Origen
from 1st sermon on Psalm 38[39] [SC 411, p. 355]
“Summer is now near”
“Let me know, O Lord, my end and what is the number of my days, that I may learn what it is I lack” (Ps 38[39],5). If you let me know my end, the psalmist says, and if you let me know the number of my days then by that alone I shall know what it is I am lacking.
Or, possibly, he may be indicating this by these words: every occupation has an end; for example, the end of a building business is to build a house; the end of a naval yard is to build a ship capable of surmounting the waves of the sea and resisting the winds’ assaults; and the end of every occupation is something similar for which the occupation itself seems to have been conceived.
In the same way there may also be a certain end to our life and to the world as a whole for which all that happens in our life takes place or for which the world itself was created or subsists. Concerning this end the apostle Paul is also thinking when he says: “Then comes the end when he hands over the Kingdom to God his Father” (1Cor 15,24). Now to this end we must most certainly hasten since it is itself the reward of the work, it is what we were created by God for.
Just as our bodily organism, which in the beginning is small and reduced at its birth, nevertheless grows and reaches towards its full height as it increases in age; and as our soul, too, … is first of all given a stammering speech that then becomes more clear so as to come finally to a means of expressing itself perfectly and correctly, so too, certainly, all our life begins now as if stammering among people on earth, but it is brought to completion and attains its full capacity in the heavens with God.
For this reason, therefore, the prophet wants to know the end for which he was made so that by looking towards the end, examining his days and considering his perfection he may see what it is he still lacks regarding the end to which he is moving… It is just as if those who went out from Egypt had said: “Let me know, O Lord, my end”, a good and holy land, “and the number of my days” to where I am travelling, “so that I may know what I still lack”, how much there remains for me to do before I reach that holy land promised to me.
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St. Aphrahat
from The Demonstrations, no.4
“Be vigilant at all times and pray”
My beloved, that a person should do the will of God is what constitutes prayer. That is how prayer seems to me to excel. Above all, be eager for prayer and do not weary in it, as it is written that our Lord said: “Pray and do not weary.” You should be eager in wakefulness and remove far from yourself drowsiness and sleep; you should be watchful both by day and by night and not be disheartened.
Now I shall show you the different occasions for prayer. There is petition, thanksgiving, and praise. In petition one asks for mercy for one’s sins, in thanksgiving you give thanks to your Father who is in heaven, while in praise you praise him for his works. At a time when you are in trouble, offer up petition, and when you are well supplied with good things, you should give thanks to the Giver, and when your mind rejoices, offer up praise.
Make all these prayers of yours with discernment to God. See how David was always saying: “I have risen to give thanks to you for your judgments, O Just One.” (Ps 119[118],62). And in another psalm he said: “Praise the Lord in heaven, praise him in the heights” (Ps 149[148],1). Again he says: “I will bless the Lord at all times, and at all times his praises are in my mouth” (Ps 34[33],2). Do not pray using only one kind of prayer, but all separately according to circumstance.
I am convinced, my beloved, that everything people ask for with diligence, God will grant them. But he takes no pleasure in the person who offers up prayer in mockery. As it is written: “This is required of the person who prays, offering up prayer: that he turn over and inspect his offering well, lest some blemish be found on it; only then should he offer it” (cf Mt 5,23-24; Mk 11,25), so that your offering does not remain on earth. What is this offering if not prayer?… Of all offerings pure prayer is the best.
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St. Charles Borromeo
from Pastoral Letter
“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see”
My friends, here is the time we celebrate with such great fervor and, as the Holy Spirit says, the time of favor from the Lord (Is 61,2; Lk 4,19), the season of salvation, peace and reconciliation; a time that was so ardently longed for in former days with urgent desires and longings on the part of the prophets and patriarchs of old and which, at last, was seen by righteous Simeon with overflowing joy (Lk 2,25f.). And since the Church has always celebrated it with such great fervor, we too should spend it in a religious fashion, addressing praise and thanksgiving to the eternal Father for the mercy he has manifested in this mystery.
Because it is relived by the Church each year, we are always being exhorted to recall the memory of such love towards us. This teaches us, too, that Christ’s coming has not only benefited those who were living in the days of the Lord but that its power was to be passed on to us as well – at least, if we want to receive the grace it has won for us by means of faith and the sacraments and to direct our lives according to this grace by our obedience to it.
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Blessed Jan van Ruusbroec
from The Spiritual Espousals, 1
Christ comes in the sacraments, notably in the eucharist
The second coming of Christ our Bridegroom takes place daily in good persons; indeed, it takes place frequently and repeatedly, with new gifts and graces, in all those who prepare themselves for it to the best of their ability. We do not intend to speak here of a person’s initial conversion or of the graces, which were first bestowed when he turned from sin to virtue. Rather, we wish to speak of a day-to-day increase in new gifts and new virtues and of a present, daily coming of Christ our Bridegroom into our soul…
This is [a] coming of Christ our Bridegroom which takes place daily with an increase in graces and new gifts, for when a person receives any of the sacraments with a humble heart and without placing any obstacle in the way of the sacrament’s effects, then he receives new gifts and an increase of grace because of his humility and because of the mysterious working of Christ in the sacraments…
It is, then, another coming of Christ our Bridegroom which is present to us every day. We should reflect on it with a heart full of desire so that it might take place in ourselves, for this coming is necessary if we are to remain steadfast or go forward into eternal life.
