Words of the Word

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light ...” (Matthew 6:22.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s Gospel, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“If your eyes were completely blind, would you choose to wear gold and silk? Wouldn’t you consider your sound health to be more desirable than mere externals? For if you should lose your health or waste it, all the rest of your life would be unhappily affected. For just as when the eyes are blinded, some of the ability of the other members is diminished, their light being quenched, so also when the mind is depraved, your life will be filled with countless evils. As therefore in the body it is our aim to keep the eye sound, so also it should be our aim to keep the mind sound in relation to the soul. But if we destroy this, which ought to give light to the rest, by what means are we to see clearly any more? For as he who destroys the spring may also dry up the river, so he who has quenched the understanding may have confounded all his actions in this life. So it is said, “If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is the darkness?” For when the pilot is drowned, when the candle is put out, when the general is taken prisoner, what sort of hope will remain for those that are under his command?” (The Gospel of Matthew: Homily, 20.)

Collect

O God,
strength of those who hope in You,
graciously hear our pleas,
and, since without You
mortal frailty can do nothing,
grant us always the help of Your grace,
that in following Your commands
we may please You by our resolve and 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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We are God’s children; let us abide in his peace

Saint Cyprian of Carthage

Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Christ clearly laid down an additional rule to bind us by a certain contractual condition: we ask that our debts be forgiven insofar as we forgive our own debtors. Thus we are made aware that we cannot obtain what we ask regarding our own trespasses unless we do the same for those who trespass against us. This is why he says elsewhere: The measure you give will be the measure you get. And the servant who, after his master forgives all his debt, refuses to forgive his fellow servant is thrown into prison. Because he refused to be kind to his fellow servant, he lost the favor his master had given him.

Along with his other precepts Christ lays this down even more forcefully with a most vigorous condemnation. He says: When you stand up to pray, if you have anything against anyone, let it go, so that your heavenly Father may also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. You will have no excuse on the day of judgment, for then you will be judged just as you have judged, and you will suffer whatever you have done to others.

God bids us to be peace-loving, harmonious and of one mind in his house; he wants us to live with the new life he gave us at our second birth. As sons of God, we are to abide in peace; as we have one Spirit, we should be one in mind and heart. Thus God does not receive the sacrifice of one who lives in conflict, and he orders us to turn back from the altar and be first reconciled with our brother, that God too may be appeased by the prayers of one who is at peace. The greatest offering we can make to God is our peace, harmony among fellow Christians, a people united with the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

When Cain and Abel first offered their sacrifices, God considered not so much the gifts as the spirit of the giver: God was pleased with Abel’s offering because he was pleased with his spirit. Thus Abel the just man, the peacemaker, in his blameless sacrifice taught men that when they offer their gift at the altar they should approach as he did, in the fear of God, simplicity of heart, ruled by justice and peaceful harmony. Since this was the character of Abel’s offering, it was only right that he himself should afterward become a sacrifice. As martyrdom’s first witness and possessing the Lord’s qualities of justice and peace, he foreshadowed the Lord’s passion in the glory of his own death. Such, then, are the men who are crowned by the Lord and will be justified with him on the day of judgment.

But Saint Paul and the sacred Scriptures tell us that the quarrelsome man and the troublemaker, who is never at peace with his brothers, cannot escape the charge of internal dissension even though he may die for Christ’s name. For it is written: He who hates his brother is a murderer, nor can he attain the kingdom of heaven. God cannot abide a murderer. He cannot be united with Christ, who has preferred to imitate Judas rather than Christ.

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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A Blessing for our Dads

God our Father,
in your wisdom and love
you made all things.
Bless these men
that they may be strengthened
as Christian fathers.
Let the example of their faith
and love shine forth.
Grant that we, their sons and daughters,
may honor them always
with a spirit of profound respect.

Grant this through Christ our Lord.

With my beloved Dad in Jerusalem, 1999.

God of our ancestors in faith,
by the covenant made on Mount Sinai,
you taught Your people to strengthen the bonds of family
through faith, honor and love.
Look kindly upon John,
my father who sought to bind his children to You.
Bring him one day to our heavenly home
where the saints dwell in blessedness and peace.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

“But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” (Mark 4:32.)

Saint Peter Chrysologus comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“It is up to us to sow this mustard seed in our minds and let it grow within us into a great tree of understanding reaching up to heaven and elevating all our faculties; then it will spread out branches of knowledge, the pungent savor of its fruit will make our mouths burn, its fiery kernel will kindle a blaze within us inflaming our hearts, and the taste of it will dispel our unenlightened repugnance. Yes, it is true: a mustard seed is indeed an image of the kingdom of God. Christ is the kingdom of heaven. Sown like a mustard seed in the garden of the virgin’s womb, he grew up into the tree of the cross whose branches stretch across the world. Crushed in the mortar of the passion, its fruit has produced seasoning enough for the flavoring and preservation of every living creature with which it comes in contact. As long as a mustard seed remains intact, its properties lie dormant; but when it is crushed they are exceedingly evident. So it was with Christ; he chose to have his body crushed, because he would not have his power concealed. Christ became all things in order to restore all of us in himself. The man Christ received the mustard seed which represents the kingdom of God; as man he received it, though as God he had always possessed it. He sowed it in his garden, that is in his bride, the Church. The Church is a garden extending over the whole world, tilled by the plough of the gospel, fenced in by stakes of doctrine and discipline, cleared of every harmful weed by the labor of the apostles, fragrant and lovely with perennial flowers: virgins’ lilies and martyrs’ roses set amid the pleasant verdure of all who bear witness to Christ and the tender plants of all who have faith in him. Such then is the mustard seed which Christ sowed in his garden. When he promised a kingdom to the patriarchs, the seed took root in them; with the prophets it sprang up; with the apostles it grew tall; in the Church it became a great tree putting forth innumerable branches laden with gifts. And now you too must take the wings of the psalmist’s dove, gleaming gold in the rays of divine sunlight, and fly to rest for ever among those sturdy, fruitful branches. No snares are set to trap you there; fly off, then, with confidence and dwell securely in its shelter.” (Sermon 98.)

Collect

O God, strength of those Who hope in You,
graciously hear our pleas,
and, since without You
mortal frailty can do nothing,
grant us always the help of Your grace,
that in following Your commands
we may please You by our resolve and 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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Let your prayer come from a humble heart

Saint Cyprian of Carthage

Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

When we pray, our words should be calm, modest and disciplined. Let us reflect that we are standing before God. We should please him both by our bodily posture and the manner of our speech. It is characteristic of the vulgar to shout and make a noise, not those who are modest. On the contrary, they should employ a quiet tone in their prayer.

Moreover, in the course of his teaching, the Lord instructed us to pray in secret. Hidden and secluded places, even our own rooms, give witness to our belief that God is present everywhere; that he sees and hears all; that in the fullness of his majesty, he penetrates hidden and secret places. This is the teaching of Jeremiah: Am I God when I am near, and not God when I am far away? Can anyone hide in a dark corner without my seeing him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? Another passage of Scripture says: The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, observing both good and wicked men.

The same modesty and discipline should characterize our liturgical prayer as well. When we gather to celebrate the divine mysteries with God’s priest, we should not express our prayer in unruly words; the petition that should be made to God with moderation is not to be shouted out noisily and verbosely. For God hears our heart not our voice. He sees our thoughts; he is not to be shouted at. The Lord showed us this when he asked: Why do you think evil in your hearts? The book of Revelation testifies to this also: And all the churches shall know that I am the one who searches the heart and the desires.

Anna maintained this rule; in her observance of it she is an image of the Church. In the First Book of Kings we are told that she prayed quietly and modestly to God in the recesses of her heart. Her prayer was secret but her faith was evident. She did not pray with her voice, but with her heart, for she knew that in this way the Lord would hear her. She prayed with faith and obtained what she sought. Scripture makes this clear in the words: She was speaking in her heart; her lips were moving but her voice could not be heard; and the Lord heard her prayer. The psalmist also reminds us: Commune within your own hearts, and in the privacy of your room express your remorse. This is the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Through Jeremiah he suggests this: Say in your hearts: Lord, it is you that we have to worship.

My friends, anyone who worships should remember the way in which the tax-collector prayed in the temple alongside the Pharisee. He did not raise his eyes immodestly to heaven or lift up his hands arrogantly. Instead he struck his breast and confessing the sins hidden within his heart he implored the assistance of God’s mercy. While the Pharisee was pleased with himself, the tax-collector deserved to be cleansed much more because of the manner in which he prayed. For he did not place his hope of salvation in the certainty of his own innocence; indeed, no one is innocent. Rather he prayed humbly, confessing his sins. And the Lord who forgives the lowly heard his prayer.

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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Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

“But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” (Matthew 5:22.)

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

“What are we to do? “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.” But “no human being can tame the tongue.” Will everyone therefore go to the hell of fire? By no means. “Lord, you have become our refuge from generation to generation.” Your wrath is just. You send no one to hell unjustly. “Where shall I go from your spirit? or where shall I flee from your presence,” unless to you? Thus let us understand, my dearly beloved, that if no human being can tame the tongue, we must take refuge in God, who will tame it. Does your own human nature prevent you from taming your tongue? “No human being can tame the tongue.

Consider this analogy from the animals that we tame. A horse does not tame itself; a camel does not tame itself; an elephant does not tame itself; a snake does not tame itself; a lion does not tame itself. So too a man does not tame himself. In order to tame a horse, an ox, a camel, an elephant, a lion and a snake, a human being is required. Therefore God should be required in order for a human being to be tamed.” (Sermon 55)

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.

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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The capture of Jericho

Origen of Alexandria

Priest, Ancient Christian Writer and Martyr

An excerpt from his Homily on Joshua

Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Once Jericho was surrounded it had to be stormed. How then was Jericho stormed? No sword was drawn against it, no battering ram was aimed at it, no javelins were hurled. The priests merely sounded their trumpets, and the walls of Jericho collapsed.

In the Scriptures Jericho is often represented as an image of the world. There can be no doubt that the man whom the Gospel describes as going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and falling into the hands of brigands is an image of Adam being driven out of paradise into the exile of this world. Likewise the blind men in Jericho, to whom Jesus came to give sight, signified the people in this world who were blinded by ignorance, to whom the son of God came.

Jericho will fall, then; this world will perish. Indeed in the sacred books the end of the world was proclaimed long ago. How will the world be brought to an end, and by what means will it be destroyed? The answer of Scripture is: By the sound of trumpets. If you ask what trumpets, then let Paul reveal the secret. Listen to what he says: The trumpet will sound, and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible. The voice of the archangel and the trumpets of God will give the signal, and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Then the Lord Jesus will conquer Jericho with trumpets and destroy it, saving only the harlot and her household.

Jesus our Lord will come says Paul, and he will come with the sound of trumpets. He will save only the woman who received his spies, that is, his apostles, in faith and obedience, and hid them on the roof of her house; and he will join this harlot to the house of Israel. But let us not bring up her past sins again or impute them to her. She was a harlot once, but now she is joined to Christ, chaste virgin to one chaste husband. Listen to what the Apostle say of her: He has determined to present you to Christ as a chaste virgin to her one and only husband. Indeed, Paul himself had been born of her: Misled by our folly and disbelief, he said, we too were once slaves to our passions and to pleasures of every kind.

If you wish to learn more fully about how this harlot ceased to be a harlot then listen to Paul once again: And such were you also, but you have been cleansed and made holy in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. To assure her escape when Jericho was destroyed, the harlot was given that most effective symbol of salvation, the scarlet cord. For it is by the blood of Christ that the entire Church is saved, in the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom belongs glory and dominion 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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Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church

“Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:18)

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

”But the “one dot” is not only the iota of the Greeks but also that which among the Hebrews is called the yod. And the “one iota” or “one dot” can symbolically be said to be Jesus, since the beginning of his name is written not only by Greeks with an iota but also by Hebrews with a yod. So Jesus will be the one dot, the Word of God in the law which does not pass from the law until all is accomplished. But the iota might also be (as he himself says) the Ten Commandments of the law, for everything else passes away, but these do not pass away. But neither does Jesus pass away; if he “falls to the ground” he does so willingly, in order to bear much fruit. Again, the “one iota” or “one dot” has mastery over things both in heaven and on earth.” (Fragment, 99)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
Who gave Saint Anthony of Padua
to your people
as an outstanding preacher
and an intercessor in their need,
grant that, with his assistance,
as we follow the teachings
of the Christian life,
we may know Your help in every trial.
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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Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“The LORD God then called to the man and asked him: Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9.)

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

““Where are you, Adam?” Are you trapped in the imagined godlikeness that the serpent falsely promised you? Or are you prepared for the death that I, the Lord, decreed for you? Would that you had considered the fruits! Suppose, Adam, that instead of a serpent who might be the most despicable creature of all, an angel or a god had come to you? Would you have despised the commandment of him who gave you all these things, heeding instead the counsel of one who had not yet done you any good? Would you then have considered evil the very One who formed you out of nothing? Would you despise the One who made you a second god over creation? Would you dare instead to consider good the very fallen one who gave you only a verbal promise of some good? If another god were to come to you in power, should you not have rejected his advice? How much more then in the case of a serpent who came to you with no power, with no wondrous deeds but with only the empty word that it spoke to you?” (Commentary on Genesis, 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

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I wish you to please God, and not men

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Bishop, Apostolic Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from his Letter to the Romans

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ignatius, called Theophorus, to the church which has found mercy in the generosity of the Father on high and of Jesus Christ, his only Son; to the church which is loved and enlightened by the Father, who wills all that exists in accordance with the love of Jesus Christ our God; to the Church which rules over the land of the Romans, a church worthy of God, worthy of honor and of praise, worthy to be called blessed, worthy to receive the answer to its prayer, pure, and preeminent in love among Christian communities, observing the law of Christ and bearing the Father’s name; I greet this church in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the Father. To those who were in union, body and soul, with his every command, and filled inalienably with the grace of God, and cleansed wholly from all foreign stain, I wish every blameless joy in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through my prayers I have been granted the favor of seeing you, my holy brothers, face to face, as indeed I have constantly asked. I now hope to embrace you as a prisoner in Christ Jesus, provided that it is God’s will for me to be found worthy to the end. For a good start has been made, if only I may gain the grace to secure my prize without hindrance. For I fear that your love may harm me. It is easy for you to do as you wish, but hard for me to attain to God if you should not allow me to be martyred.

I wish you to please God and not men—as indeed you are doing. I shall never again have such an opportunity to get to God, nor will you, if you keep silent, ever have the credit for a greater achievement. If you keep silent about me, I become a word of God; but if you love me in the flesh, I become a meaningless cry. Grant me no more than to be made a sacrifice to God while there is still an altar at hand. Thus you may form a choir of love and sing praise to the Father in Christ Jesus for so graciously summoning the bishop of Syria from the sun’s rising to come to the place of its setting. It is a fine thing for me to set with the sun, leaving the world and going to God, that I may rise 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

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