Words of the Word

Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot

“Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13.)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“Give us this day our superessential bread.” Ordinary bread is not “superessential,” but this holy bread is superessential in the sense of being ordained for the essence of the soul. Not of this bread is it said that it “passes into the stomach and is discharged into the drain.” No, it is absorbed into your whole system to the benefit of both soul and body. By “this day” he means “daily,” as in Paul’s “while it is called ‘today.’” (Mystagogical Lectures, 5.)

“In the Old Testament, house of God and rest of God are parallel notions. God rests in his house (cf. Ps. 132:8, 14. 2Chr 6:41). Christians have the "heavenly vocation" (Heb. 3:1) to enter with Christ into the "rest of God." They are already part of the house of Christ and of God (3:6); by faith they are already entering into God's rest (4:3), but they are called upon to enter in a definitive and perfect way.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 88.)

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

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Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

“Now since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil...” (Hebrews 2:14.)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“Jesus sanctified baptism when he himself was baptized. If the Son of God was baptized, can anyone who scorns baptism pretend to piety? Not that he was baptized to receive the remission of sins—for he was without sin—but, being sinless, he was nevertheless baptized that he might impart grace and dignity to those who receive the sacrament. For, “since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature,” that we, sharing his incarnate life, might also share his divine grace. Thus Jesus was baptized that we, in turn, so made partakers with him, might receive not only salvation but also the dignity. The dragon, according to Job, was in the water, he who received the Jordan in his maw. When, therefore, it was necessary to crush the heads of the dragon, descending into the water, he bound the strong one, that we might receive the “power to tread upon serpents and scorpions.” It was no ordinary beast, but a horrible monster. No fishing ship could last under a single scale of his tail; before him stalked destruction, ravaging all in her path. But life came running up, that that maw of death might be stopped and all we who were saved might say, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” Baptism draws death’s sting.” (Catechetical Lectures, 3.)

“But, paradoxically, death, the instrument of the power of the devil, has been transformed by Christ into an instrument of victory over the devil. The purpose of the Incarnation is the latter: the transformation of death into an instrument of victory, that - it must be said - to the force of love. Christ's victory over "the one who held the power of death" ensures the liberation of believers (2:15). Instead of being held in slavery by the feat of death, which is seen as an inevitable negative outcome, believers know they are associated with Christ's victory.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 79.)

Collect

Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
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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Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

“For it was not to angels that he subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. Instead, someone has testified somewhere...” (Hebrews 2:5-6.)

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, according to the prophetic word, people were alienated from the life-giving womb through sin and went astray from the womb in which they were fashioned, they spoke falsehood instead of truth. Because of this, the Mediator, assuming the first fruit of our common nature, made it holy through his soul and body, unmixed and unreceptive of all evil, preserving it in himself. He did this in order that, having taken it up to the Father of incorruptibility through his own incorruptibility, the entire group might be drawn along with it because of their related nature, in order that the Father might admit the disinherited to “adoption” as children and the enemies of God to a share in the Godhead. And just as the first fruit of the dough was assimilated through purity and innocence to the true Father and God, so we also as dough in similar ways will cleave to the Father of incorruptibility by imitating, as far as we can, the innocence and stability of the Mediator.

Thus, we shall be a crown of precious stones for the only begotten God, having become an honor and a glory through our life. For Paul says, “Having made himself a little lower than the angels because of his having suffered death, he made those whose nature had previously become thorny through sin into a crown for himself, transforming the thorn through suffering into honor and glory.” And yet, once he has “taken away the sins of the world” and taken upon his head a crown of thorns in order to weave a crown of “honor and glory,” there is no small danger that someone may be discovered to be a burr and a thorn because of his evil life, and then be placed in the middle of the Master’s crown because of sharing in his body. The just voice speaks directly to this one: “How did you get in here without a wedding garment? How were you, a thorn, woven in with those fitted into my crown through honor and glory?” (On Perfection)

If Jesus was “crowned with glory and honor” and became, in his very humanity, “superior to the angels” (1:4), it is “because of the death He suffered” (2:9). At first sight it may seem strange that a death, something negative, should be a cause of glorification. In reality, what produced the glorification of Jesus is not his death itself but the way he faced his death. He made it the occasion of a perfect offering, of filial obedience to God and fraternal solidarity with humankind.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 74.)

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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Monday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

“... who is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being, and who sustains all things by his mighty word. When he had accomplished purification from sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high...” (Hebrews 1:3.)

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 proclamation from Hebrews:

“The majesty of the Father is expressly imaged in the greatness of the power of the Son, that the one may be believed to be as great as the other is known to be. Again, as the radiance of light sheds its brilliance from the whole of the sun’s disk . . . so too all the glory which the Father has is shed from its whole by means of the brightness that comes from it, that is, by the true Light. Even as the ray is of the sun—for there would be no ray if the sun were not—the sun is never conceived as existing by itself without the ray of brightness that is shed from it. So the apostle delivered to us the continuity and eternity of that existence which the Only Begotten has of the Father, calling the Son “the brightness of God’s glory.” (Against Eunomius, 8.)

“Continuing the upward movement he began by passing from the final inheritance to to the initial creation, the author rises still higher and contemplates the very being of the Son, which is defined by His relation to God: the Son is the «resplendence of the glory» of God «and perfect expression of His being. For the first expression, the author clearly inspired by the description of Wisdom in the Book of Wisdom, the only other passage in the Bible that uses the word resplendence.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 55.)

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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The Baptism of the Lord

“After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22.)

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

The Lord was baptized. The heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him. A voice from the heavens thundered and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am pleased.” We should say that heaven was opened at the baptism of Jesus and for the plan of forgiving sins. These are not the sins of him “who had committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.” The heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit came down for the forgiveness of the whole world’s sins. After the Lord “ascended on high, leading captivity captive,” he gave them the Spirit. The Spirit had come to him, and he gave the Spirit at the time of his resurrection, when he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they will be forgiven him. If you retain them for anyone, they will be retained.” But “the Holy Spirit came down upon the Savior in the form of a dove.” The dove is a gentle bird, innocent and simple. Hence we too are commanded to imitate the innocence of doves. Such is the Holy Spirit: pure, swift, and rising up to the heights.” (Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, 27.)

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
Who, when Christ had been baptized
in the River Jordan and
as the Holy Spirit descended upon Him,
solemnly declared Him Your beloved Son,
grant that Your children by adoption,
reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,
may always be well 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.

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 have labored with all my powers to fulfill the duties of my office

Saint John Neumann

Fourth Bishop of Philadelphia (USA)

An excerpt from his A Letter to Cardinal Barnabo

Feast of Saint John Neumann, Bishop (Philadelphia USA)

Indeed, I have apparently delayed too long in writing to the Holy See the letter promised by the Archbishop of Baltimore in the name of the council. However, this delay was not without reason. For the council was scarcely finished and I was discussing the division of Diocese of Philadelphia and my translation to a new see with one of the Fathers of the council, when the Father intimated to me [that he did not know] whether that could more probably be hoped for, since the Holy See thought that I would resign from the episcopate, or wished to resign. In the same way when the Archbishop of Baltimore informed me of the designation of a coadjutor, he added that in the event that I should persevere in the desire to resign, the Holy See would permit me to give the title of the ecclesiastical property to the same coadjutor.

I was no little disturbed by the fear that I had done something that so displeased the Holy Father that my resignation would appear desirable to him. If this be the case, I am prepared without any hesitation to leave the episcopacy. I have taken this burden out of obedience, and I have labored with all my powers to fulfill the duties of my office, and with God’s help, as I hope, not without fruit. When the care of temporal things weighed upon my mind and it seemed to me that my character was little suited for the very cultured world of Philadelphia, I made known to my fellow bishops during the Baltimore council of 1858 that it seemed opportune to me to request my translation to one or the other see that was to be erected (namely in the City of Pottsville or in Wilmington, North Carolina). But to give up the episcopal career never entered my mind, although I was conscious of my unworthiness and ineptitude; for things had not come to such a pass that I had one or the other reason out of the six for which a bishop could safely ask the Holy Father permission to resign. For a long time I have doubted what should be done.

Although my coadjutor has proposed to me that he would take the new see if it is erected, I have thought it much more opportune and I have asked the Fathers that he be appointed to the See of Philadelphia, since he is much more highly endowed with facility and alacrity concerning the administration of temporal things. Indeed, I am much more accustomed to the country, and will be able to care for the people and faithful living in the mountains, in the coal mines and on the farms, since I would be among them.

If, however, it should be displeasing to His Holiness to divide the diocese, I am, indeed, prepared either to remain in the same condition in which I am at present, or if God so inspires His Holiness to give the whole administration of the diocese to the Most Reverend James Wood, I am equally prepared to resign from the episcopate and to go where I may more securely prepare myself for death and for the account which must be rendered to the Divine Justice.

I desire nothing but to fulfill the wish of the Holy Father whatever it may be.

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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Saint John Neumann, Bishop (Feast in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia USA)

“So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties...” (Mark 6:39-40)

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

“I believe that he ordered the people to sit down upon the grass because of what is said in Isaiah: “all flesh is grass;” that is, to humble the flesh, to make subject the arrogance of the flesh; so that each one may become a partaker of the loaves to which Jesus gave his blessing.

Since there are different classes of those who need the food which Jesus supplies, for all are not equally nourished by the same words, on this account I think that Mark has written, “And he commanded them that they should all sit down by companies upon the green grass; and they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties...” For it was necessary that those who were to find comfort in the food of Jesus should either be in the order of the hundred — the sacred number which is consecrated to God because of its completeness; or in the order of the fifty — the number which symbolizes the remission of sins in accordance with the mystery of the Jubilee which took place every fifty years, and of the feast at Pentecost.” (Commentary on Matthew, 11.)

Collect

O God,
Who called the Bishop
Saint John Neumann,
renowned for his
charity and pastoral service,
to shepherd your people in America,
grant by his intercession
that, as we foster the
Christian education of youth
and are strengthened
by the witness of brotherly love,
we may constantly increase
the family of your Church.
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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Christmas Weekday - Thursday before Epiphany

“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29.)

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

”There are five animals that are offered on the altar, three being land animals and two winged. It seems worthwhile to me to ask why the Savior is said to be a “lamb” by John and none of the rest. But also, in the case of the land animals, since three types of animal are offered according to each species, why did he name the lamb from the species of sheep? Now these are the five animals: a young bull, a sheep, a goat, a turtledove, a pigeon.

And the three types of sheep are a ram, the ewe and the lamb. It is the lamb, however, that we find offered in the perpetual sacrifices. What other perpetual sacrifice can be spiritual to a spiritual being than the Word in his prime, the Word symbolically called “lamb”? But if we examine the declaration about Jesus, who is pointed out by John in the words “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” from the standpoint of the plan of salvation when the Son of God bodily lived among the human race, we will assume that the lamb is none other than his humanity. For he “was led as a sheep to the slaughter and was dumb as a lamb before its shearer,” saying, “I was an innocent lamb being led to be sacrificed.”

This is why in the Apocalypse, too, a little lamb is seen “standing as though slain.” This lamb, indeed, which was slain according to certain secret reasons, has become the expiation of the whole world. According to the Father’s love for humanity, he also submitted to slaughter on behalf of the world, purchasing us with his own blood from him who bought us when we had sold ourselves into sin. He, however, who led this lamb to the sacrifice was God in man, the great high priest, who reveals this through the saying, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.”” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 6.)

Collect

O God,
Who by the Nativity of Your Only Begotten Son
wondrously began for Your people
the work of redemption,
grant, we pray,
to Your servants such firmness of faith,
that by His guidance
they may attain the glorious prize
You have promised.
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 vision of the Word will fulfill all our desires

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Sermon 194

Christmas Weekday

What man knows all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ, concealed in the poverty of his flesh? Scripture says: Although he was rich he became poor for our sake to enrich us by his poverty. He showed himself poor when he assumed our mortal nature and destroyed death, yet he promised us riches, for he had not been robbed of his wealth but was keeping it in reserve.

How great are the blessings of his goodness which he reserves for those who fear him and shows to those who hope in him! Until he gives them to us in their plentitude, we can have only the faintest conception of them; but to enable us to receive these blessings, he who in his divine nature is the equal of the Father assumed the condition of a slave and became like us, and so restored to us our likeness to God. The only Son of God became a son of man to make many men sons of God. He instructed slaves by showing himself in the form of a slave, and now he enables free men to see him in the form of God.

For we are the sons of God, and although what we shall be has not yet been revealed, we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. For what are those treasures of wisdom and knowledge, what those divine riches, if not the one thing that can fulfill our longing? What are the great blessings of his goodness, if not the one thing that will content us? Therefore: Show us the Father, and all our desires will be satisfied.

Christ speaks both in us and for us when, in one of the psalms, he says to the Father: I shall be satisfied when your glory is revealed. For he and the Father are one, and whoever sees him sees the Father also. The Lord of hosts is himself the king of glory. He will transform us and show us his face, and we shall be saved; all our longing will be fulfilled, all our desires will be satisfied.

But this has not yet been accomplished; he has not yet given us the vision that will satisfy every desire; we have not yet drunk our fill of the fountain of life. So while all this remains in the future and we still walk by faith, justice and, with inexpressible longing, yearn for God’s beauty, let us reverently celebrate the day he was born into our own servile condition.

Since we can as yet form no conception of his generation by the Father before the daystar, let us keep the festival of his birth of a virgin in the hours of the night. Since it is still beyond our understanding that his name endures for ever and existed before the sun, let us at least recognize his dwelling that he has placed beneath the sun. We cannot yet behold him as the only Son, abiding for ever in his Father, so let us recall his coming forth like a bridegroom from his chamber. We are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, so let us contemplate the manger of Jesus Christ our Lord.

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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Christmas Weekday, Friday before Epiphany

“... the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are of one accord.” (1 John 5:8.)

Pope Saint Leo the Great comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“This means the Spirit of sanctification, the blood of redemption and the water of baptism, which three are one and remain distinct, and none of them is separated from union with the others. This is the faith by which the church lives and moves.” (Letters, 28.)

Collect

Cast your kindly light upon Your faithful,
Lord, we pray,
and with the splendor of Your glory
set their hearts ever aflame,
that they may never cease
to acknowledge their Savior
and may truly hold fast to Him.
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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