Words of the Word

Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

“Blessed are all who fear the LORD, and who walk in his ways.” (Psalm 128, 1)

In commenting on this verse from today’s Psalm, Cassiodorus writes:

“When he says, “Blessed are all who fear the Lord,” he shows that they are not blessed who fear with troubled mind the dangers of the world when temporal property is lost. For those dangers make people wretched when they torment them with groundless fear. They have no advantage, but rather a dimunition. They do not know an ascent, but rather destruction. In contrast, the fear of the Lord descends from love, is born of charity and is begotten of sweetness. A pious fear comforts the fearful and refreshes the afflicted, and does not know how to lack joy unless such fruit of fear has been put aside. About this fear it is written, “Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” How advantageous fear is, if children are taught by it! What sort of learning there is which is given with sweet affection!” (Explanation of the Psalms)

Collect

O God,
Whose providence never fails in its design,
keep from us, we humbly beseech you,
all that might harm us
and grant all that works for our good.
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.

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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Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

“Then sad at heart, I groaned and wept aloud. With sobs I began to pray: ...” (Tobit 3:1.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“Regarding the second kind of prayer, see Daniel: “And Azarias standing up prayed in this manner and opening his mouth in the midst of the fire he said.” And Tobias: “And I began to pray with tears, saying, You are just, O Lord, and all your works are just and all your ways mercy and truth. And your judgments are true and just forever.” And since the passage in Daniel has been obelized on the ground that it is not found in the Hebrew text, and those of the circumcision reject the book of Tobias as not being canonical, I shall quote the words of Anna from the first book of Kings: “And she prayed the Lord, shedding many tears. And she made a vow, saying, O Lord of hosts, if you will look down on the affliction of your servant,” and so on. And in Habakkuk: “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet with song. O Lord, I have heard your voice and was afraid. O Lord, I reflected on your works and was astonished. In the midst of two animals you will be known; in the approach of the years you will be recognized.” The example just given illustrates very well the definition of prayer inasmuch as he who offers it unites it with praise of God. And again, in the book of Jonah: “Jonah prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the fish. And he said, I cried out of my affliction to the Lord my God, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell you heard the screams of my voice. And you have thrown me into the deep in the heart of the sea, and a flood has surrounded me.” (On Prayer, 14.)

Collect

O God,
Whose providence never fails in its design,
keep from us, we humbly beseech You,
all that might harm us
and grant all that works for our good.
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.

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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True doctrine dispels arrogance

Saint Gregory the Great

Bishop of Rome and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Moral Reflections on Job, Book 23-24.

Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Listen, Job, to what I say and ponder all my words. The teaching of the arrogant has this characteristic: they do not know how to introduce their teaching humbly and they cannot convey correctly to others the things they understand correctly themselves. With their words they betray what they teach; they give the impression that they live on lofty heights from which they look down disdainfully on those whom they are teaching; they regard the latter as inferiors, to whom they do not deign to listen as they talk; indeed they scarcely deign to talk to them at all—they simply lay down the law.

To teachers of this kind the Lord through the prophet says rightly: But you will rule them with severity and with power. There is no doubt that such as are prone not to correct their subjects with quiet reasoning, but to compel them to change by rough and domineering methods, rule with severity and power.

On the contrary true doctrine all the more effectively shuns the voice of arrogance through reflection, in which it pursues the arrogant teacher himself with the arrows of its words. It ensures that the pride which it attacks in the hearts of those listening to the sacred words will not in fact be preached by arrogant conduct. For true doctrine tries both to teach by words and to demonstrate by living example—humility, which is the mother and mistress of virtues. Its goal is to express humility among the disciples of truth more by deeds than by words.

Accordingly, when addressing the Thessalonians, Paul is oblivious of his own eminent dignity as an apostle; he actually says: We became as little children in your midst. Similarly, the apostle Peter enjoins: Be always prepared to satisfy everybody who asks a reason for the hope which is in you, and by adding the words, with a good conscience, speak gently and respectfully, Peter draws attention to the manner in which sacred doctrine should be taught.

When he tells his disciples: These things command and teach with all power, Paul really recommends the credibility that goes hand in hand with good behavior rather than the domineering exercise of power. When one practices first and preaches afterwards, one is really teaching with power. Doctrine loses credibility, if conscience tethers the tongue. Paul, therefore, in the saying quoted above, does not refer to the power of lofty rhetoric but to the confidence elicited by good deeds. Of the Lord, too, it is said: He taught with authority unlike the Scribes and the Pharisees. He alone in a unique and sovereign way spoke from the power of his goodness because no evil weakness led him into sin. For he had from the power of his own divine nature what he gave to us through the sinlessness of his human nature.

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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Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

“I did not know that sparrows were perched on the wall above me; their warm droppings settled in my eyes, causing white scales on them. I went to doctors for a cure, but the more they applied ointments, the more my vision was obscured by the white scales, until I was totally blind. For four years I was unable to see, and all my kindred were distressed at my condition. Ahiqar, however, took care of me for two years, until he left for Elam.” (Tobit 2:10)

Saint Bede the Venerable comments on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“Do not be surprised, reader, that sometimes, typologically speaking, people’s good deeds have a bad meaning and their bad deeds a good meaning; that “God is light” would never have been written in black ink but always in bright gold if this were not permissible. But even if you should write the name of the devil in pure white chalk, it still means deep darkness. Tobit’s being blinded, therefore, denotes, as the apostle says, “that blindness has come on a part of Israel.” He was wearied with burying and blinded, because the one who tirelessly perseveres in good works is never deprived of the light of faith; the one who neglects to watch and stand firm in the faith and act powerfully and be strengthened spiritually lies down and sleeps from fatigue. The apostle’s saying fits him well: “Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you.” Because of their swift flight, swallows are a figure of pride and volatility of heart, since their uncleanness immediately blinds those over whom it holds sway. For the one who recklessly enslaves his soul to the volatility of licentiousness and pride sleeps, as it were, lying down beneath a swallow’s nest. Now this blindness got the better of the people of Israel especially as the coming of the Lord in the flesh was imminent, when they were both being oppressed by the yoke of Roman slavery and transgressing the precepts of the divine law by very immoral living.” (On Tobit, 2)

Collect

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

Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr

“I remembered the oracle pronounced by the prophet Amos against Bethel: “I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into dirges...” (Tobit 2:6.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“Once the people fell down in the desert and died. Aaron their chief priest came and “stood in the midst of those who died and of those who lived,” so that the devastation of death might not advance even further among the rest. And then came the true high priest, my Lord, and he came into the midst between those dying and the living. That is, he came between those Jews who accepted his presence and those who not only did not accept but also killed themselves more completely than him, saying, “The blood of that one be on us and on our children!” So also “all the righteous blood that has been poured forth on the earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah whom they killed between the sanctuary and the altar, will be required from that generation” that said, “His blood on us and on our children.” Therefore, these are a part of the dead people because they do not properly perform either the feast of unleavened bread or the feast days. But “their feast days have been turned into sorrow and their songs into lamentations,” they who, even if they wished, could not celebrate the feast days in that place that the Lord God chose. And indeed we ourselves did not say to them, “You will have no part in this altar or in the inheritance of the Lord,” but they themselves of their own accord refute the true altar and the heavenly high priest and have been brought to such a point of unhappiness that they both lost the image and did not accept the truth. Therefore it is said to them, “Behold, your house is left to you deserted.” For the grace of the Holy Spirit has been transferred to the nations; the celebrations have been transferred to us because the high priest has passed over to us, not the imagined but the true high priest, chosen “according to the order of Melchizedek.” It is necessary that he offer for us true sacrifices, that is, spiritual, where “the temple of God is built from living stones,” which is “the church of the living God” and where true Israel exists.” (Homilies on Joshua, 26.)

Collect

May the Martyr Saint Boniface
be our advocate, O Lord,
that we may firmly hold the faith
he taught with his lips and sealed in his blood
and confidently profess it by our deeds.
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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Pentecost Sunday — Mass during the Day

“But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” (Romans 8:9.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Second Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“Is the Spirit of God somehow different from the Spirit of Christ, or are the two one and the same? As far as I can follow the logic of this passage, not to mention what the Savior says of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel, namely, that “he proceeds from the Father” and “he receives of me,” to which he adds by way of explanation: “Father, everything which is mine is yours, and everything which is yours is mine; wherefore I said, that he receives of me.” When, I say, I consider the logic of this unity between the Father and the Son, it seems to me that the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are one and the same Spirit.

We can understand this to mean that someone who is not of such a character as to deserve to have the Spirit of Christ is not recognized as belonging to him. It may also be understood to mean that anyone who does not act in the Spirit, who is not prepared for righteousness, for truth, for the proclamation of the Word of God, for the preaching of the kingdom of heaven, for rejecting the letter of the law and for opening up its spirit, for resisting sin, for everything which will prevent him from coming to death, is not Christ’s disciple.” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 4.)

Reflections on the Gospel for Pentecost.

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.

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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Fifth Sunday of Easter

"In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2.)

Saint Augustine of Hippo comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed during today’s Mass:

“But he is in a certain sense preparing the dwellings by preparing for them the dwellers. As, for instance, when he said, “In my Father’s house are many dwellings.” What else can we suppose the house of God to mean but the temple of God? And what that is, ask the apostle, and he will reply, “For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” This is also the kingdom of God that the Son is yet to deliver up to the Father. For it is to this kingdom, standing then at the right hand, that it shall be said in the end, “Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom.” In other words, you who were the kingdom but without the power to rule, come and reign so that what you formerly were only in hope, you may now have the power to be in reality. This house of God, therefore, this temple of God, this kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven, is as yet in the process of building, of construction, of preparation, of assembling. There will be dwellings in it even as the Lord is now preparing them. There are in fact such dwellings already even as the Lord has already ordained them.” (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 68.)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
constantly accomplish
the Paschal Mystery within us,
that those You were pleased
to make new in Holy Baptism
may, under Your protective care,
bear much fruit
and come to the joys
of life eternal.
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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Mary’s Motherhood in the Order of Grace

Second Vatican Council

An excerpt from Lumen Gentium, 61-62.

Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima

Predestined from eternity by that decree of divine providence which determined the incarnation of the Word to be the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin was on this earth the virgin Mother of the Redeemer, and above all others and in a singular way the generous associate and humble handmaid of the Lord. She conceived, brought forth and nourished Christ. She presented Him to the Father in the temple, and was united with Him by compassion as He died on the Cross. In this singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity in the work of the Saviour in giving back supernatural life to souls. Wherefore she is our mother in the order of grace.

This maternity of Mary in the order of grace began with the consent which she gave in faith at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, and lasts until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and cultics, until they are led into the happiness of their true home. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix. This, however, is to be so understood that it neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one Mediator.

For no creature could ever be counted as equal with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer. Just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by the ministers and by the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to His creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.

The Church does not hesitate to profess this subordinate role of Mary. It knows it through unfailing experience of it and commends it to the hearts of the faithful, so that encouraged by this maternal help they may the more intimately adhere to the Mediator and Redeemer.

Collect

O God,
Who chose the Mother of Your Son
to be our Mother also,
grant us that,
persevering in penance and prayer
for the salvation of the world,
we may further more effectively each day
the reign of Christ.
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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Fourth Sunday of Easter

“But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” (John 10:5.)

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus reflects on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“He offers you a shepherd. For this is what your good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep is hoping and praying for. Do you on your side offer to God and to us obedience to your pastors? Will you dwell in a place of pasture and be fed by refreshing waters, knowing your Shepherd well and being known by him? Will you follow when he earnestly calls you as a Shepherd through the door? Or will you follow a stranger climbing up into the fold like a robber and a traitor? Will you listen to a strange voice when that voice would take you away by stealth and scatter you from the truth on mountains, and in deserts, and pitfalls, and places that the Lord does not visit? And would you be led away from the sound faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one power and Godhead whose voice my sheep always heard — and may they always hear it — to follow deceitful and corrupt words that would tear them from their true Shepherd? May we all be kept from this, both shepherd and flock. May we guide and be guided away from such a poisoned and deadly pasture so that we may all be one in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and unto our heavenly rest.” (On Easter and His Reluctance [Oration 1])

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
lead us to a share in the joys of heaven,
so that the humble flock may reach
where the brave Shepherd has gone before.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Reflection on Sunday’s Gospel

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

Prayer
— Saint Joseph the Worker —

God our Father,

You gave to us the just-man Saint Joseph,

who was completely obedient

to the call of the Holy Spirit,

by being spouse to the

Virgin Mother of God

and watching like a father over Jesus,

Your Only Begotten Son.

Gracious Father,

charge once again Saint Joseph,

to watch over us as he watched over

Mary and Your Son, Jesus:

to know Your Will,

to be given the grace to carry it out faithfully, and

the wisdom to respond to Your love for us.

Saint Joseph,

guard and protect us from all that keeps us

from following more closely

Jesus, your son and Son of God,

in the unfolding mysteries

of the Father’s plan for our salvation.

As in all things,

we make this prayer through

our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

Who lives and reigns with You,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

One God, forever and ever. Amen.

The Lord is risen. Alleluia!

He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

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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