Memorial of Saint Anthony (Antony)
Abbot


Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
“Therefore, let us be on our guard while the promise of entering into his rest remains, that none of you seem to have failed...” (Hebrews 4:1.)

Saint Ephrem the Syrian offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“In fact, if Joshua, the son of Nun, who allowed them to inherit the land, had settled them and given them rest, they still would not speak at all about the “other day of rest.” Indeed, Joshua made them rest, because he gave them the land as an inheritance, but they did not rest in it perfectly, as God perfectly rested from God’s works, for they lived in toils and wars. If that rest was not a true rest, since Joshua himself, the giver of their rest, was urged by the wars, if this is their condition, I say, there still remains the sabbath of God, who gives rest to those who enter there, as God rested from God’s works, that is, from all the works which God made.” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 4.)


God's rest cannot simply mean the land of Canaan. God's rest is not a place but a state of which the account of creation speaks. The promise to enter into God's rest is a promise to have a share with God in that blessed state, that peace, that joy. Thanks to their faith, believer have a foretaste of it.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 92-93.)



Collect
O God,
Who brought the Abbot Saint Anthony
to serve You
by a wondrous way of life in the desert,
grant, through his intercession,
that, denying ourselves,
we may always love You above all things.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen








Saint Anthony receives his vocation



Saint Athansius of Alexandria
Bishop and Great Eastern Father of the Church

An excerpt from The Life of Saint Anthony

Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot

When Anthony was about eighteen or twenty years old, his parents died, leaving him with an only sister. He cared for her as she was very young, and also looked after their home.

Not six months after his parents’ death, as he was on his way to church for his usual visit, he began to think of how the apostles had left everything and followed the Savior, and also of those mentioned in the book of Acts who had sold their possessions and brought the apostles the money for distribution to the needy. He reflected too on the great hope stored up in heaven for such as these. This was all in his mind when, entering the church just as the Gospel was being read, he heard the Lord’s words to the rich man: If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor–you will have riches in heaven. Then come and follow me.

It seemed to Anthony that it was God who had brought the saints to his mind and that the words of the Gospel had been spoken directly to him. Immediately he left the church and gave away to the villagers all the property he had inherited, about 200 acres of very beautiful and fertile land, so that it would cause no distraction to his sister and himself. He sold all his other possessions as well, giving to the poor the considerable sum of money he collected. However, to care for his sister he retained a few things.

The next time he went to church he heard the Lord say in the Gospel: Do not be anxious about tomorrow. Without a moment’s hesitation he went out and gave the poor all that he had left. He placed his sister in the care of some well-known and trustworthy virgins and arranged for her to be brought up in the convent. Then he gave himself up to the ascetic life, not far from his own home. He kept a careful watch over himself and practiced great austerity. He did manual work because he had heard the words: If anyone will not work, do not let him eat. He spent some of his earnings on bread and the rest he gave to the poor.

Having learned that we should always be praying, even when we are by ourselves, he prayed without ceasing. Indeed, he was so attentive when Scripture was read that nothing escaped him and because he retained all he heard, his memory served him in place of books.

Seeing the kind of life he lived, the villagers and all the good men he knew called him the friend of God, and they loved him as both son and brother.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 






Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13)

In commenting upon this verse from today’s First Reading, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“From hardness comes unbelief. As in bodies the parts that have become callous and hard do not yield to the hands of the physicians, so also souls that are hardened yield not to the Word of God. For it is probable that some even disbelieved those things which had already been done; hence he says, “Take heed.” Because the argument from the future is not so persuasive as from the past, he reminds them of the history in which they had lacked faith. For if your fathers, he says, because they did not hope as they ought to have hoped, suffered these things, much more will you. To them also is this word addressed, for “today,” he says, is “ever,” so long as the world lasts. Therefore, “exhort one another daily, as long as it is called ‘today.’” That is, edify one another, raise yourselves up, lest the same things should befall you. “Lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Do you see that sin produces unbelief? For as unbelief brings forth an evil life, so also a soul, “when it is come into a depth of evils, becomes contemptuous”1 and, having become contemptuous, it endures not even to believe, in order thereby to free itself from fear.” (On the Epistle to the Hebrews, 6)


“Commenting on the psalm, the preacher provides his hearers with a truly community-centered exhortation. He calls upon them to make a mutual inquiry into any “lack of faith”; he exhorts them to “exhort each other,” lest any one of them “be hardened,” as the psalm says, and the preacher adds, “through deceit of sin.” In 3:14, the author goes from “you” to “we,” that is to say that he includes himself and all the Christians in the group being exhorted. He reminds them of their high dignity: “We have become sharers of Christ” thanks to faith, baptism, and the Eucharist (cf. 10:19-22).” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 89.)



Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care,
O Lord, we pray,
that they may see what must be done
and gain strength to do what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.







The Word of the Father gives
order, direction and unity to creation



Saint Athanasius of Alexandria
Bishop and Great Eastern Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Against the Pagans

Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

By his own wisdom and Word, who is our Lord and Savior Christ, the all-holy Father (whose excellence far exceeds that of any creature), like a skillful steersman guides to safety all creation, regulating and keeping it in being, as he judges right. It is right that creation should exist as he has made it and as we see it happening, because this is his will, which no one would deny. For if the movement of the universe were irrational, and the world rolled on in random fashion, one would be justified in disbelieving what we say. But if the world is founded on reason, wisdom and science, and is filled with orderly beauty, then it must owe its origin and order to none other than the Word of God.

He is God, the living and creative God of the universe, the Word of the good God, who is God in his own right. The Word is different from all created things: he is the unique Word belonging only to the good Father. This is the Word that created this whole world and enlightens it by his loving wisdom. He who is the good Word of the good Father produced the order in all creation, joining opposites together, and forming from them one harmonious sound. He is God, one and only-begotten, who proceeds in goodness from the Father as from the fountain of goodness, and gives order, direction and unity to creation.

By his eternal Word the Father created all things and implanted a nature in his creatures. He did not want to see them tossed about at the mercy of their own natures, and so be reduced to nothingness. But in his goodness he governs and sustains the whole of nature by his Word (who is himself also God), so that under the guidance, providence and ordering of that Word, the whole of nature might remain stable and coherent in his light. Nature was to share in the Father’s Word, whose reality is true, and be helped by him to exist, for without him it would cease to be. For unless the Word, who is the very image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, kept it in existence it could not exist. For whatever exists, whether visible or invisible, remains in existence through him and in him, and he is also the head of the Church, as we are taught by the ministers of truth in their sacred writings.

The almighty and most holy Word of the Father pervades the whole of reality, everywhere unfolding his power and shining on all things visible and invisible. He sustains it all and binds it together in himself. He leaves nothing devoid of his power but gives life and keeps it in being throughout all of creation and in each individual creature.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 






Wednesday of the
First Week in Ordinary Time



“Now since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil...” (Hebrews 2:14.)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“Jesus sanctified baptism when he himself was baptized. If the Son of God was baptized, can anyone who scorns baptism pretend to piety? Not that he was baptized to receive the remission of sins—for he was without sin—but, being sinless, he was nevertheless baptized that he might impart grace and dignity to those who receive the sacrament. For, “since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature,” that we, sharing his incarnate life, might also share his divine grace. Thus Jesus was baptized that we, in turn, so made partakers with him, might receive not only salvation but also the dignity. The dragon, according to Job, was in the water, he who received the Jordan in his maw. When, therefore, it was necessary to crush the heads of the dragon, descending into the water, he bound the strong one, that we might receive the “power to tread upon serpents and scorpions.” It was no ordinary beast, but a horrible monster. No fishing ship could last under a single scale of his tail; before him stalked destruction, ravaging all in her path. But life came running up, that that maw of death might be stopped and all we who were saved might say, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” Baptism draws death’s sting.” (Catechetical Lectures, 3.)


“But, paradoxically, death, the instrument of the power of the devil, has been transformed by Christ into an instrument of victory over the devil. The purpose of the Incarnation is the latter: the transformation of death into an instrument of victory, that - it must be said - to the force of love. Christ's victory over "the one who held the power of death" ensures the liberation of believers (2:15). Instead of being held in slavery by the feat of death, which is seen as an inevitable negative outcome, believers know they are associated with Christ's victory.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 79.)





Collect
O God,
Who for Your glory and
the salvation of the human race
willed to establish Christ
as the eternal high Priest,
grant that the people He has gained for You
by His Blood may,
through their participation in His Memorial,
experience the power of His Cross and Resurrection.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 


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Knowledge of the Father
consists in the Self-Revelation of the Son



Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from his Against Heresies, Book 4

Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

No one can know the Father apart from God’s Word, that is, unless the Son reveals him, and no one can know the Son unless the Father so wills. Now the Son fulfils the Father’s good pleasure: the Father sends, the Son is sent, and he comes. The Father is beyond our sight and comprehension; but he is known by his Word, who tells us of him who surpasses all telling. In turn, the Father alone has knowledge of his Word. And the Lord has revealed both truths. Therefore, the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father by his revelation of himself. Knowledge of the Father consists in the self-revelation of the Son, for all is revealed through the Word.

The Father’s purpose in revealing the Son was to make himself known to us all and so to welcome into eternal rest those who believe in him, establishing them in justice, preserving them from death. To believe in him means to do his will.

Through creation itself the Word reveals God the Creator. Through the world he reveals the Lord who made the world. Through all that is fashioned he reveals the craftsman who fashioned it all. Through the Son the Word reveals the Father who begot him as Son. All speak of these things in the same language, but they do not believe them in the same way. Through the law and the prophets the Word revealed himself and his Father in the same way, and though all the people equally heard the message not all equally believed it. Through the Word, made visible and palpable, the Father was revealed, though not all equally believed in him. But all saw the Father in the Son, for the Father of the Son cannot be seen, but the Son of the Father can be seen.

The Son performs everything as a ministry to the Father, from beginning to end, and without the Son no one can know God. The way to know the Father is the Son. Knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and is revealed through the Son. For this reason the Lord said: No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son has revealed him. The word “revealed” refers not only to the future—as though the Word began to reveal the Father only when he was born of Mary; it refers equally to all time. From the beginning the Son is present to creation, reveals the Father to all, to those the Father chooses, when the Father chooses, and as the Father chooses. So, there is in all and through all one God the Father, one Word and Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation for all who believe in him.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 






Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“For it was not to angels that he subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. Instead, someone has testified somewhere...” (Hebrews 2:5-6.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on these verses from today’s First Reading:

“When, according to the prophetic word, people were alienated from the life-giving womb through sin and went astray from the womb in which they were fashioned, they spoke falsehood instead of truth. Because of this, the Mediator, assuming the first fruit of our common nature, made it holy through his soul and body, unmixed and unreceptive of all evil, preserving it in himself. He did this in order that, having taken it up to the Father of incorruptibility through his own incorruptibility, the entire group might be drawn along with it because of their related nature, in order that the Father might admit the disinherited to “adoption” as children and the enemies of God to a share in the Godhead. And just as the first fruit of the dough was assimilated through purity and innocence to the true Father and God, so we also as dough in similar ways will cleave to the Father of incorruptibility by imitating, as far as we can, the innocence and stability of the Mediator.

Thus, we shall be a crown of precious stones for the only begotten God, having become an honor and a glory through our life. For Paul says, “Having made himself a little lower than the angels because of his having suffered death, he made those whose nature had previously become thorny through sin into a crown for himself, transforming the thorn through suffering into honor and glory.” And yet, once he has “taken away the sins of the world” and taken upon his head a crown of thorns in order to weave a crown of “honor and glory,” there is no small danger that someone may be discovered to be a burr and a thorn because of his evil life, and then be placed in the middle of the Master’s crown because of sharing in his body. The just voice speaks directly to this one: “How did you get in here without a wedding garment? How were you, a thorn, woven in with those fitted into my crown through honor and glory?” (On Perfection)



If Jesus was “crowned with glory and honor” and became, in his very humanity, “superior to the angels” (1:4), it is “because of the death He suffered” (2:9). At first sight it may seem strange that a death, something negative, should be a cause of glorification. In reality, what produced the glorification of Jesus is not his death itself but the way he faced his death. He made it the occasion of a perfect offering, of filial obedience to God and fraternal solidarity with humankind.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 74.)


Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 


The ability to love is within each of us



Saint Basil the Great
Bishop and Great Eastern Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Detailed Rules for Monks

Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

Love of God is not something that can be taught. We did not learn from someone else how to rejoice in light or want to live, or to love our parents or guardians. It is the same—perhaps even more so—with our love for God: it does not come by another’s teaching. As soon as the living creature (that is, man) comes to be, a power of reason is implanted in us like a seed, containing within it the ability and the need to love. When the school of God’s law admits this power of reason, it cultivates it diligently, skillfully nurtures it, and with God’s help brings it to perfection.

For this reason, as by God’s gift, I find you with the zeal necessary to attain this end, and you on your part help me with your prayers. I will try to fan into flame the spark of divine love that is hidden within you, as far as I am able through the power of the Holy Spirit.

First, let me say that we have already received from God the ability to fulfill all his commands. We have then no reason to resent them, as if something beyond our capacity were being asked of us. We have no reason either to be angry, as if we had to pay back more than we had received. When we use this ability in a right and fitting way, we lead a life of virtue and holiness. But if we misuse it, we fall into sin.

This is the definition of sin: the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good, a use contrary to God’s commands. On the other hand, the virtue that God asks of us is the use of the same powers based on a good conscience in accordance with God’s command.

Since this is so, we can say the same about love. Since we received a command to love God, we possess from the first moment of our existence an innate power and ability to love. The proof of this is not to be sought outside ourselves, but each one can learn this from himself and in himself. It is natural for us to want things that are good and pleasing to the eye, even though at first different things seem beautiful and good to different people. In the same way, we love what is related to us or near to us, though we have not been taught to do so, and we spontaneously feel well disposed to our benefactors.

What, I ask, is more wonderful than the beauty of God? What thought is more pleasing and wonderful than God’s majesty? What desire is as urgent and overpowering as the desire implanted by God in a soul that is completely purified of sin and cries out in its love: I am wounded by love? The radiance of divine beauty is altogether beyond the power of words to describe.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

 

Monday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“... who is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being, and who sustains all things by his mighty word. When he had accomplished purification from sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high...” (Hebrews 1:3.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verse from today’s proclamation from Hebrews:

“The majesty of the Father is expressly imaged in the greatness of the power of the Son, that the one may be believed to be as great as the other is known to be. Again, as the radiance of light sheds its brilliance from the whole of the sun’s disk . . . so too all the glory which the Father has is shed from its whole by means of the brightness that comes from it, that is, by the true Light. Even as the ray is of the sun—for there would be no ray if the sun were not—the sun is never conceived as existing by itself without the ray of brightness that is shed from it. So the apostle delivered to us the continuity and eternity of that existence which the Only Begotten has of the Father, calling the Son “the brightness of God’s glory.” (Against Eunomius, 8.)


“Continuing the upward movement he began by passing from the final inheritance to to the initial creation, the author rises still higher and contemplates the very being of the Son, which is defined by His relation to God: the Son is the «resplendence of the glory» of God «and perfect expression of His being. For the first expression, the author clearly inspired by the description of Wisdom in the Book of Wisdom, the only other passage in the Bible that uses the word resplendence.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 55.)



Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 


The Word of God on high, fountain of wisdom



Saint Clement of Rome
Bishop of Rome and Martyr

An excerpt from Letter to the Corinthians

Monday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

For his chosen ones scattered throughout the world, we shall make our constant prayer to the Creator of the universe. May he allow none of them to fall away, but preserve them all through his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, through whom he called us out of darkness into light, out of ignorance to the knowledge of his glorious name.

Give us grace, Lord, to hope in your Name, to which all creatures owe their being. Open the eyes of our heart to know you alone, the Most High in the highest heavens, the holy One, whose dwelling is in the holy. You abase the arrogance of the proud, frustrate the designs of the godless, exalt the lowly and humble the lofty. You give men wealth and take it away; you slay them, save them and give them new life. Alone the Benefactor of spirits and God of all flesh, your gaze penetrates the depths, you observe the doings of men. Helper of those in peril, Savior of those in despair, you created and still keep watch over all that draws breath. You cause the peoples on the earth to multiply, and from them all choose those who love you through Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. Through him you have instructed us, sanctified us, honored us.

Lord, we entreat you to help us. Come to the aid of the afflicted, pity the lowly, raise up the fallen, show your face to the needy, heal the sick, convert the wayward, feed the hungry, deliver the captives, support the weak, encourage the fainthearted. Let all nations know that you alone are God; Jesus Christ is your Son, and we are your people and the sheep of your pasture.

Lord, you created the world according to the eternal decree now revealed in your works. Faithful throughout all generations you are just in judgment, wonderful in power and majesty. You formed your creation with wisdom, established it with prudence. Everything we see proclaims your goodness. You are kind and compassionate, and never fail those who put their trust in you. Forgive us for our failings and for our sins.

Do not hold all the transgressions of your servants against them, but purify us by your truth, and so guide our footsteps that by walking in holiness and justice and simplicity of heart we may do what is good and pleasing in your sight and in the sight of our leaders.

Lord, let the light of your face shine upon us, so that we may enjoy your blessings in peace, protected by your strong hand, and freed from all sin by your outstretched arm; and deliver us from those who hate us unjustly.

Give peace and concord to us and to all mankind, even as you gave it to our ancestors when they devoutly called upon you in faith and truth. Lord, you alone are able to bestow these and even greater benefits upon us. We praise you through Jesus Christ, our high priest and the champion of our souls. Through him be glory and majesty to you now and throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 






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