Easter Week 4: Wednesday– Feast: Saint Matthias, Apostle –

“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.” (John 15:16)

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

“You did not choose me, but I chose you.” That is amazing grace! For what were we before Christ had chosen us besides being wicked and lost? We did not believe in him, so as to be chosen by him. For if he chose those who already believed, then he was [in effect] chosen himself prior to his choosing [them]. This passage refutes the vain opinion of those who say that we were chosen before the foundation of the world because God foreknew that we should be good, not that he himself would make us good. For if he had chosen us because he foreknew that we should be good, he would have foreknown also that we should first choose him. For without choosing him we cannot be good, unless indeed someone can be called good who has not chosen good. What then has he chosen in those who are not good? You cannot say, I am chosen because I believed. For if you believed in him, you had already chosen him. Nor can you say, Before I believed I did good works and therefore was chosen. For what good work is there before faith when the apostle says, “Whatever is not of faith is sin?” What is there for us to say, then, but that we were wicked and were chosen, that by the grace of having been chosen we might become good?” (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 86)

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Today is the feast of the Apostle, Saint Matthias. In Sermon 3 on the Acts of the Apostles, Saint John Chrysostom offers a reflection on the selection of Saint Matthias to fulfill the office of Apostle.

Collect

O God,
Who assigned Saint Matthias
a place in the college of Apostles,
grant us, through his intercession,
that, rejoicing at how Your love
has been allotted to us,
we may merit to be numbered among the elect.
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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Easter Collect

O God, Life of the faithful,
Glory of the humble, Blessedness of the just,
listen kindly to the prayers
of those who call on You,
that they who thirst for what
You generously promise
may always have their fill of Your plenty.
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!

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Ordinary Time Week 7: Wednesday.

“John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” (Mark 9:38)

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

“His situation was in some ways parallel to that of one who, while not yet embracing the sacraments of Christ, nevertheless esteems the Christian name so far as even to welcome Christians and accommodate oneself to their service for this very reason and no other — that they are Christians. This is the type of person of whom it was said that he would not lose his reward. This does not mean, however, that such individuals ought prematurely to imagine themselves quite safe and secure simply on account of this kindness which they cherish toward Christians, while at the same time remaining uncleansed by Christ’s baptism, and not thereby incorporated into the unity of his body. Such persons are now already being guided by the mercy of God in such a way that they may also come to receive these loftier gifts, and so depart this present world in safety. Such persons assuredly are more profitable servants even before they become a part of the body of Christ, than those who, while already bearing the Christian name and partaking in the sacraments, recommend courses of action which are only fitted to drag others along with them into eternal punishment.” (Harmony of the Gospels, 4)

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Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that, always pondering spiritual things,
we may carry out in both word and deed
that which is pleasing to You.
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 You Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen!

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Ordinary Time Week 7: Monday.

“Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

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

“In saying, “When the Son of Man shall come, shall he find faith upon the earth?” our Lord spoke of that faith which is fully matured, which is so seldom found on earth. The church’s faith is full, for who would come here if there were no fullness of faith? And whose faith when fully matured would not move mountains? Look at the apostles themselves, who would not have left all they had, trodden under foot this world’s hope, and followed the Lord, if they had not had proportionally great faith. And yet if they had already experienced a completely matured faith, they would have not said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” Rather we find here an emerging faith, which is not yet full faith, in that father who when he had presented to the Lord his son to be cured of an evil spirit and was asked whether he believed, answered, “Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief.” “Lord,” says he, “I believe.” “I believe”: therefore there was faith; but “help me in my unbelief ”: therefore there was not full faith.” (Sermons on the New Testament Lessons, 66)

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Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that, always pondering spiritual things,
we may carry out in both word and deed
that which is pleasing to You.
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 You Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen!

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Ordinary Time Week 7: Sunday.

“... that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45)

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

“With regard to what immediately follows, namely, “That you may be children of your Father who is in heaven,” it is to be understood in the sense in which John also speaks when he says, “He gave them the power of becoming children of God.” For there is One who is the Son by nature, and he absolutely knows no sin. But since we have received the power to become sons, we are made sons insofar as we fulfill the precepts that have been given by the Son. “Adoption” is the term used by the apostle to denote the character of our vocation to the eternal inheritance, in order to be joint heirs with Christ. By spiritual regeneration we therefore become sons and are adopted into the kingdom of God, not as aliens but as his creatures and offspring.” (Sermon on the Mount, 1)

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Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that, always pondering spiritual things,
we may carry out in both word and deed
that which is pleasing to You.
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 You Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen!

Week 29, Monday. Memorial Blessed Pope John Paul II

Throughout this “Year of Faith,” Pope Benedict has called the universal Church to once again ponder and live the primacy of the encounter with the Person, Jesus the Christ. Throughout the pre-Synodal documents, the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum Laboris, we have been reminded of the privileged encounter with Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist and a robust life of prayer; all of which intends, once again, to re-capture as a Grace of God the Father the joy, beauty and ardor of being a disciple of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

In the Church’s Prayer known as the Liturgy of the Hours, we have begun to listen to the words of Saint Augustine in the Office of Readings as he penned a “Letter to Proba” in the year 412 (also known as Letter 130). This letter amounts to a short ‘school of prayer’ and his guidance as a Father of the Church can certainly form us in the ways of prayer whose object is always responding to the invitation to commune with God our Father, Jesus His Son and Holy Spirit. The full translation of the Letter can be found here. It is worth a ‘slow and pondering’ read and multiple re-reads throughout this week - AND - perhaps beyond!

COLLECT

O God, who are rich in mercy and
who willed that the Blessed John Paul II
should preside as Pope over your universal Church,
grant, we pray,
that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the
saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns.