Words of the Word

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“... he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:24.)

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

“Those words show clearly that the demons had much knowledge, but entirely lacked love. They dreaded receiving their punishment from him. They did not love the righteousness that was in him. He made himself known to them to the extent he willed; and he willed to be made known to the extent that was fitting. But he was not made known to them as he is known to the holy angels, who enjoy participation in his eternity, in that he is the Word of God. To the demons he is known as he had to be made known, by striking terror into them, for his purpose was to free from their tyrannical power all who were predestined for his kingdom and glory, which is eternally true and truly eternal. Therefore, he did not make himself known to the demons as the life eternal, and the unchangeable light which illuminates his true worshipers, whose hearts are purified by faith in him so that they see that light. He was known to the demons through certain temporal effects of his power, the signs of his hidden presence, which could be more evident to their senses, even those of malignant spirits, than to the weak perception of human beings.” (City of God, 9.)

A reflection on “to be astonished” from this Sunday’s Gospel (Year B).

Collect

Grant us, Lord our God,
that we may honor you with all our mind,
and love everyone in truth of heart.
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

Top

Tuesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

“Then David came dancing before the LORD with abandon, girt with a linen ephod.” (2 Samuel 6:14.)

Saint Maximus of Turin offers the following insight on these verses from today’s First Reading proclamation:

“For our vows are celebrated when the church is united to Christ, as John says: “The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.”1 Because of this marriage, therefore, it behooves us to dance, for David, at once king and prophet, is also said to have danced before the ark of the covenant with much singing. In high rejoicing he broke into dancing, for in the Spirit he foresaw Mary, born of his own line, brought into Christ’s chamber, and so he says, “And he, like a bridegroom, will come forth from his chamber.” Thus he sang more than the other prophetic authors because, gladder than the rest of them, by these joys he united those coming after him in marriage. And, by inviting us to his own vows in a more charming way than usual, having danced with such joy in front of the ark before his marriage, he taught us what we ought to do at those other vows. The prophet David danced, then. But what would we say that the ark was if not holy Mary, since the ark carried within it the tables of the covenant, while Mary bore the master of the same covenant? The one bore the law within itself and the other the gospel, but the ark gleamed within and without with the radiance of gold, while holy Mary shone within and without with the splendor of virginity; the one was adorned with earthly gold, the other with heavenly.” (Sermon 42)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
direct our actions
according to Your good pleasure,
that in the name of Your beloved Son
we may abound in good works.
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

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

“Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored.” (Mark 3:5.)

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

“Now as for the Lord’s saying: “Satan cannot drive out Satan,”3 lest perhaps anyone using the name of some of the lowest powers when driving out a demon should think this opinion of the Lord’s to be false, let him understand the point of this saying: Satan does spare the body or the senses of the body, but he tempts the senses for the purpose [NT Vol. II, p. 42] of dominating the will of the man in question, in a triumph of greater import, through the error of impiety. Satan does not strike for the body as such, but rather for the innermost self in order to work in him in the manner described by the apostle: “according to the prince of the power of this air, who is now active in the sons of disobedience.”4 For Satan was not troubling and tormenting the senses of their bodies, nor was he battering their bodies, but he was reigning in their wills, or better, in their covetousness.” (Eighty-three Different Questions, Question 79)

Collect

God our Creator,
we give thanks to You,
Who alone have the power
to impart the breath of life
as You form each of us in our mother’s womb;
grant, we pray,
that we, whom You have made stewards of creation,
may remain faithful to this sacred trust
and constant in safeguarding
the dignity of every human life.
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

Top

The sanctity of marriage and the family

Second Vatican Council

An excerpt from Gaudium et Spes, 48.

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

Husband and wife, by the covenant of marriage, are no longer two, but one flesh. By their intimate union of persons and of actions they give mutual help and service to each other, experience the meaning of their unity, and gain an ever deeper understanding of it day by day.

This intimate union in the mutual self-giving of two persons, as well as the good of the children, demands full fidelity from both, and an indissoluble unity between them.

Christ the Lord has abundantly blessed this richly complex love which springs from the divine source of love and is founded on the model of his union with the Church.

In earlier times God met his people in a covenant of love and fidelity. So now the Savior of mankind, the Bridegroom of the Church, meets Christian husbands and wives in the sacrament of matrimony. Further, he remains with them in order that, as he loved the Church and gave himself up for her, so husband and wife may, in mutual self-giving, love each other with perpetual fidelity.

True married love is caught up into God’s love; it is guided and enriched by the redeeming power of Christ and the saving action of the Church, in order that the partners may be effectively led to God and receive help and strength in the sublime responsibility of parenthood.

Christian partners are therefore strengthened, and as it were consecrated, by a special sacrament for the duties and the dignity of their state. By the power of this sacrament they fulfill their obligations to each other and to their family and are filled with the spirit of Christ. This spirit pervades their whole lives with faith, hope and love. Thus they promote their own perfection and each other’s sanctification, and so contribute together to the greater glory of God.

Hence, with parents leading the way by example and family prayer, their children—indeed, all within the family circle—will find it easier to make progress in natural virtues, in salvation and in holiness. Husband and wife, raised to the dignity and the responsibility of parenthood, will be zealous in fulfilling their task as educators, especially in the sphere of religious education, a task that is primarily their own.

Children, as active members of the family, contribute in their own way to the holiness of their parents. With the love of grateful hearts, with loving respect and trust, they will return the generosity of their parents and will stand by them as true sons and daughters when they meet with hardship and the loneliness of old age.

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

Top

The Kingdom of God

εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”

“After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God:
“This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, hē basileia tou Theou) is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.””

(Mark 1:14.)

θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)

What is the “Kingdom of Heaven (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, hē basileia tou Theou)?” Where is the “Kingdom of God?” Is the “Kingdom of God” just another word or synonym in the Gospels for Heaven? “The Kingdom of God” sparks many questions and rightly so. When searching the Gospels for “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven (which appears more often in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew),” one is amazed by the numerous references. Throughout the centuries, believers have pondered the meaning and implications of “the Kingdom of God” and scholars certainly have grappled with the phrase and filled library shelves with volumes of thought-provoking commentaries.

What can and must we do with the reality of “the Kingdom” in our day? In 1975, Pope Paul VI penned the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelizing in our Day). Early in the Exhortation, the venerable Bishop of Rome states: “As an evangelizer, Christ first of all proclaims a kingdom, the kingdom of God; and this is so important that, by comparison, everything else becomes “the rest,” which is “given in addition.” Only the kingdom therefore is absolute and it makes everything else relative. The Lord will delight in describing in many ways the happiness of belonging to this kingdom (a paradoxical happiness which is made up of things that the world rejects), the demands of the kingdom and its Magna Charta, the heralds of the kingdom, its mysteries, its children, the vigilance and fidelity demanded of whoever awaits its definitive coming (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 8).” Clearly, Pope Paul VI sees “the Kingdom of God” has the central experience of Jesus’ Public Ministry; so central that everything in His ministry is grounded in “the Kingdom.” Similarly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraphs 541 through 556) examines the manifold depth of “the Kingdom” in Jesus’ Public Ministry. Based on these texts as well as other Catechetical Documents, the Roman Missal and the Sacred Scriptures, what follows is a working description (note: not a definition) of “the Kingdom of God” that has been helpful to undergraduates, deacon candidates, seminarians and believers.

1. ‘The “Kingdom of God” is God our Father intervening definitively in the created order through the Incarnation of His Son, Jesus.’ The Kingdom is not necessarily or strictly a specific place, although ‘place’ will be a dimension of the Kingdom as a way of living. The Kingdom is a way of living, an ongoing activity initiated by God the Father in loving concern for human beings created in His image and likeness because we have become addicted to sin in such a way that we cannot break free from its grip by our own power. We have come to enjoy sin too much. Sin’s tentacles have woven deeply into our lives that often we cannot see or think clearly. We may from time-to-time have great desires to rid ourselves of sin, desires that are marvelous but desires that do not contain within themselves the power to effect what is desired. More often than not, however, sin has dulled our senses to Divine Love. Sin has numbed us into complacency and entitlement to the point that we even approach the things of God and Church from a selfish point of view with no regard to the life of faith as engagement with the Divine Persons who call me as an individual and as a community to ongoing conversion manifesting charity and service to the Body of Christ. So powerless over sin, so addicted to the false self we have become that an intervention is needed: the “Kingdom of God.”

2. ‘This intervention is a work of power, a power that transforms and surpasses the power of Creation.’ God the Father’s work is quintessentially a work of restoration, not annihilation. Ask anyone in construction and he or she will tell you that it is often easier to raze a building and start over than to renovate or restore. Renovating an existing structure that does not have a level, plumb or square line in it makes restoration tedious and time consuming, not to mention the ‘surprises’ lurking behind old plaster and lathe. Yet ask any restorer when the project is complete and most likely she or he will tell you that in spite of its challenges and frustrations, it was and continues to be a labor of love. Such is the Kingdom. Neither Creation nor humanity is destroyed. The Creator does not raze the created order and begin anew. Even though humanity makes continuous choices reinforcing the addiction to sin, the Father – with eyes of loves – gazes upon each human person in such a way that each of us are declared “precious.” So precious are we in the sight of God the Father, that none of us are disposable, expendable or useless. Each of us has a particular vocation in the Father’s plan of salvation and our very being is so precious to the Father that the loving, transforming power of His Kingdom calls us from the addiction to our false selves to our true selves as icons of the Father’s love.

3. ‘This transforming power becomes a way of living grounded in the Person Jesus and thus not a specific ‘place’ that one can absolutely pinpoint. You cannot use Google Maps or a GPS device to find the Kingdom. The Kingdom is God the Father’s way of living. It is a way of living that is the Son, Jesus. He lives each moment of His life attentive to His Father’s word and will. Spending nights in communion with His Father, Jesus teaches with His life that Kingdom living is living joined, connected, related – whatever words you wish to use – to God the Father. As a way of living, the Kingdom is a radical embrace of the First Commandment: no one nor no thing nor anything we deem important comes before the Father or interferes with our relationship with Him. Kingdom living is life that provides the essentials to a sister or brother in need (Matthew 25:31-45) and celebrates, praise and thanks the Father for all that He is doing in life (see “Mary’s Canticle,” Luke 1:46-56). It is in this sense that one can speak of the Kingdom as ‘a place.’ Wherever one is when living as the Father commands, there is the Kingdom.

4. ‘The Kingdom, as a way of living, has been prepared by the prophets of Old.’ Many of the prophets called Israel to authentic worship, a message that is still quite valid despite present, misguided and weak arguments that attempt – erroneously – at a division between religion and spirituality. For the prophets, the spiritual relationship formed by the covenant necessarily bound one (religion) freely to observe and practice a continuous, ongoing change-of-heart. The prophets knew that the ‘energy’ required to live justly as a covenant person did not come from within a person by himself or herself. Such living depended upon the mercy of God celebrated and experienced in authentic worship. Such worship then propelled one to be an instrument of charitable service in the world acting, not on one’s own initiative and power, in the name of God.

5. ‘The Kingdom, as a way of living, is now definitely revealed and embodied in Jesus’. Here, all ambiguity concerning the Kingdom is erased. The Kingdom is essentially a Person, the Person Jesus: “only He can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 426).” The Incarnation makes the Kingdom a reality in the created order to effect the Father’s loving transformation of everything, most especially the human heart. Responding and living the love revealed to us in Christ Jesus is the essential work and live of the “Kingdom of God.”

Is there more to be said about the Kingdom? Certainly – but more importantly the Kingdom is not intended for study but for living — and a specific way of living that is grounded in a Person, the Person Jesus. While some of these reflections may give us some insight, such insight is always directed to worshipping God the Father and serving one another in the name of Jesus Christ with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

“ When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.” (Jonah 3:10.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Saint Clement of Rome writes:

“These things, dearly beloved, we are writing, not only to warn you but also to remind ourselves; for we are in the same arena, and the same contest lies before us. For this reason let us abandon empty and silly concerns and come to the glorious and holy rule of our tradition. Let us see what is good and pleasing and acceptable in the sight of our Maker. Let us fix our gaze on the blood of Christ and realize how precious it is to his Father, seeing that it was poured out for our salvation and brought the grace of conversion to the whole world. Let us look back over all the generations and learn that from generation to generation the Lord has given an opportunity of repentance to all who would return to him. Noah preached penance, and those who heeded were saved. Then Jonah announced destruction to the Ninevites and they repented of their sins, besought God in prayer and, estranged though they were from God, obtained salvation.” (I Clement, 7.)

A reflection on the Kingdom of God for this Sunday.

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

Top

The pure oblation of the Church

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons

Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from his Against Heresies (Book 4)

Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

The oblation of the Church, which the Lord taught was to be offered throughout the whole world, has been regarded by God as a pure sacrifice, and is acceptable to him. Not that he needs sacrifice from us, but the one who makes the offering himself receives glory in his offering, provided that his gift is accepted. Through a gift both honor and love are shown to a king.

The Lord wants us to make our offering in all sincerity and freedom from sin. He declared this when he said: When, therefore, you offer your gift at the altar and remember that your brothers holds something against you, leave your gift before the altar, and first go and be reconciled with your brother; and then come back and offer your gift.

We must offer God the first fruits of his creation, as Moses said: You will not come empty-handed into the presence of the Lord your God. In showing gratitude to God for his gifts man is to be accounted pleasing to God, and so receive the honor that comes from God.

It is not oblations as such that have met with disapproval. There were oblations of old; there are oblations now. There were sacrifices among the people of Israel; there are sacrifices in the Church. Only the kind of oblation has been changed: now it is offered by freemen, not by slaves. There is one and the same Lord, but the character of an oblation made by slaves is distinctive, so too that of an oblation made by sons: their oblations bear the mark of freedom.

With God there is nothing without purpose, nothing without its meaning and reason. Thus the people of Israel used to dedicate tithes of their possessions. But those who have been given freedom devote what they possess to the Lord’s use. They give it all to him, not simply what is of lesser value, cheerfully and freely because they hope for greater things, like the poor widow who put into God’s treasury her whole livelihood.

We must make oblation to God, and in all things be found pleasing to God the Creator, in sound teaching, in sincere faith, in firm hope, in ardent love, as we offer the first fruits of the creatures that are his. The Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Creator when it makes its offering to him from his creation, with thanksgiving.

We offer him what is his, and so we proclaim communion and unity and profess our belief in the resurrection of flesh and spirit. Just as bread from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread but the Eucharist, made up of two elements, one earthly and one heavenly, so also our bodies, in receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, for they have the hope of resurrection.

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

Top

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

“David’s servants said to him, “This is the day about which the LORD said to you: I will deliver your enemy into your hand; do with him as you see fit.” So David moved up and stealthily cut off an end of Saul’s robe...” (1 Samuel 24:5.)

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 Mass Psalm:

“When, therefore, he was alone and had removed his robe and laid it down somewhere beside him, the light from the mouth of the cave made him visible to those hidden within the darkness. All of David’s companions wanted to rush upon the enemy and avenge themselves on the one who had come to kill them, since God had given the enemy into the hands of those who were being pursued for slaughter. But David forbade them to attack, considering an assault against their king unlawful. He drew his own sword from its sheath and imperceptibly stood behind Saul. There was no witness to his undertaking against Saul, for the darkness in the cave concealed his appearance and prevented scrutiny of what was happening. When, then, he could have driven his whole sword through Saul’s heart from behind with one blow, he neither touched his body nor was he about to. But he secretly cut off the end of his robe with his sword, so that the garment might be a witness later of his clemency toward Saul and prove the power that he had had to strike a blow against Saul’s body by means of the cut at its end.

By this it became obvious that David had been trained in forbearance. When he held the bare sword in his palm, and the body of his enemy lay under his hand, he had the power to kill him, but he conquered his anger with reason, and his power to strike the blow with the fear of God. Not only did he become superior to his own anger, but he also restrained his shield bearer who was eager to murder Saul, addressing him with that saying famous in song, “Destroy not the anointed of the Lord.” (On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, 2.)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
who govern all things,
both in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the pleading of your people
and bestow your peace on our times.
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

Top

All our love must be for God

Saint Diadochus of Photice

Bishop

An excerpt from On Spiritual Perfection

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

No one who is in love with himself is capable of loving God. The man who loves God is the one who mortifies his self-love for the sake of the immeasurable blessings of divine love. Such a man never seeks his own glory but only the glory of God. If a person loves himself he seeks his own glory, but the man who loves God loves the glory of his Creator. Anyone alive to the love of God can be recognized from the way he constantly strives to glorify him by fulfilling all his commandments and by delighting in his own abasement. Because of his great majesty it is fitting that God should receive glory, but if he hopes to win God’s favor it becomes man to be humble. If we possess this love for God, we too will rejoice in his glory as Saint John the Baptist did, and we shall never stop repeating: His fame must increase, but mine must diminish.

I know a man who, though lamenting his failure to love God as much as he desires, yet loves him so much that his soul burns with ceaseless longing for God to be glorified, and for his own complete effacement. This man has no feeling of self importance even when he receives praise. So deep is his desire to humble himself that he never even thinks of his own dignity. He fulfills his priestly duty by celebrating the Liturgy, but his intense love for God is an abyss that swallows up all consciousness of his high office. His humility makes him oblivious of any honor it might bring him, so that in his own estimation he is never anything but a useless servant. Because of his desire for self abasement, he regards himself as though degraded from his office. His example is one that we ourselves should follow by fleeing from all honor and glory for the sake of the immeasurable blessings of God’s love, for he has loved us so much!

Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him. When this awareness is keen it makes whoever possesses it long to be enlightened by the divine light, and this longing is so intense that it seems to penetrate his very bones. He loses all consciousness of himself and is entirely transformed by the love of God.

Such a man lives in this life and at the same time does not live in it, for although he still inhabits his body, he is constantly leaving it in spirit because of the love that draws him toward God. Once the love of God has released him from self-love, the flame of divine love never ceases to burn in his heart and he remains united to God by an irresistible longing. As the Apostle says: If we are taken out of ourselves it is for the love of God; if we are brought back to our senses it is for your sake.

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

Top

Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot

“Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored.” (Mark 3:5.)

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

“Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” Then he challenged the Pharisees as to whether it would be lawful to do good on the sabbath. Note the tender compassion of the Lord when he deliberately brought the man with the withered hand right into their presence.6 He hoped that the mere sight of the misfortune might soften them, that they might become a little less spiteful by seeing the affliction, and perhaps out of sorrow mend their own ways. But they remained callous and unfeeling. They preferred to do harm to the name of Christ than to see this poor man made whole. They betrayed their wickedness not only by their hostility to Christ, but also by their doing so with such contentiousness that they treated with disdain his mercies to others.” (The Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily 40)

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,
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

Top