Ordinary Time Week 10: Monday

“When He [Jesus] saw the crowds, He went up the mountain, and after He had sat down, His disciples came to Him.” (Matthew 5:1)

Saint Augustine of Hippo offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“If we ask what the mountain signifies, it is rightly understood to point toward the gospel’s higher righteousness. The precepts given to the Hebrews were lower. Yet, through his holy prophets and servants and in accordance with a most orderly arrangement of circumstance, the same God gave the lower precepts to a people to whom it was fitting to be bound by fear. Through his Son he gave the higher precepts to a people to whom it is fitting to be set free by love.” (Sermon on the Mount, 1)

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Ordinary Time Collect

O God, from whom all good things come,
grant that we, who call on you in our need,
may at your prompting discern what is right,
and by your guidance do it.
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. Amen.

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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

Pentecost 2014

“And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit.” (John 20:22)

Saint Augustine of Hippo offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“But the reason why, after his resurrection, he both gave the Holy Spirit, first on earth, and afterward sent him from heaven, is in my judgment this: that “love is shed abroad in our hearts,” by that gift itself, whereby we love God and our neighbors, according to those two commandments, “on which hang all the law and the prophets.” And Jesus Christ signified this by giving them the Holy Spirit once on earth because of the love of our neighbor and a second time from heaven because of the love of God. And if some other reason may perhaps be given for this double gift of the Holy Spirit, at any rate we ought not to doubt that the same Holy Spirit was given when Jesus breathed on them, of whom he says, “Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” where this Trinity is especially commended to us. It is therefore he who was also given from heaven on the day of Pentecost, that is, ten days after the Lord ascended into heaven.” (On the Trinity, 15)

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Easter Collect

O God, who by the mystery of today’s great feast
sanctify your whole Church in every people and nation,
pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit
across the face of the earth
and, with the divine grace that was at work
when the Gospel was first proclaimed,
fill now once more the hearts of believers.
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. Amen.

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The Lord is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Easter Week 7: Saturday

“Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.”” (John 21:22)

Saint Augustine of Hippo offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“There are two states of life, therefore, preached and commended as revealed to the church from heaven: the one being in faith, the other in sight; one remaining in time in a foreign land, the other residing in the eternal heavenly dwelling. The first was signified by the apostle Peter, the other by John. And so, it is said to Peter, “Follow me” by imitating me in the endurance of temporal evils. [But of John it is said], “Let him remain” till I come to restore everlasting bliss. And this may be expressed more clearly in this way: Let action that is perfected, informed by the example of my passion, follow me; but let contemplation that has only just begun remain until I come, to be perfected when I come. For the godly fullness of patience, reaching forward even unto death, follows Christ; but the fullness of knowledge remains until Christ comes, to be manifested then. For here the evils of this world are endured in the land of the dying, while the good things of the Lord shall be seen in the land of the living. For in saying, “I want him to remain till I come,” we are not to understand that John was supposed to remain on earth, or to abide permanently, but he was, rather, to wait. Therefore, what is signified by John shall certainly not be fulfilled now, but when Christ comes.

But what is signified by Peter to whom it was said, “Follow me,” except that his [and our] following must be done now, or it will never reach the expected outcome. In such an active life, the more we love Christ the more easily we are delivered from evil. But he loves us less as we now are, and therefore delivers us from this state of being so that we may not always be such as we are. There [in heaven], however, he loves us more; for we shall not have anything about us to displease him, or anything that would cause Christ to separate us from him. He loves us here for the purpose of healing and delivering us from everything he doesn’t love. Here, therefore, he loves us less because it is a place where he does not want us to remain. There [in heaven] he will love us in an even larger measure as the place toward which he would have us to be passing as we leave behind the place where he knows we would otherwise perish. Let Peter therefore love him, that we may obtain deliverance from our present mortality; let John be loved by him, that we may be preserved in the immortality to come.” (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 124)

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Easter Collect

Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that we, who have celebrated the paschal festivities,
may by your gift hold fast to them
in the way that we live our lives.
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. Amen.

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The Lord is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!