Your Kingdom come. Your will be done.



Saint Cyprian of Carthage
Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from his treatise On the Lord’s Prayer

Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

The prayer continues: Your kingdom come. We pray that God’s kingdom will become present for us in the same way that we ask for his name to be hallowed among us. For when does God not reign, when could there be in him a beginning of what always was and what will never cease to be? What we pray for is that the kingdom promised to us by God will come, the kingdom won by Christ’s blood and passion. Then we who formerly were slaves in this world will reign from now on under the dominion of Christ, in accordance with his promise: Come, O blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

However, my dear friends, it could also be that the kingdom of God whose coming we daily wish for is Christ himself, since it is his coming that we long for. He is our resurrection, since we rise again in him; so too he can be thought of as the kingdom of God because we are to reign in him. And it is good that we pray for God’s kingdom; for though it is a heavenly kingdom, it is also an earthly one. But those who have already renounced the world are made greater by holding positions of authority in that kingdom.

After this we add: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven; we pray not that God should do his will, but that we may carry out his will. How could anyone prevent the Lord from doing what he wills? But in our prayer we ask that God’s will be done in us, because the devil throws up obstacles to prevent our mind and our conduct from obeying God in all things. So if his will is to be done in us we have need of his will, that is, his help and protection. No one can be strong by his own strength or secure save by God’s mercy and forgiveness. Even the Lord, to show the weakness of the human nature which he bore, said: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, and then, by way of giving example to his disciples that they should do God’s will and not their own, he added: Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

All Christ did, all he taught, was the will of God. Humility in our daily lives, an unwavering faith, a moral sense of modesty in conversion, justice in acts, mercy in deed, discipline, refusal to harm others, a readiness to suffer harm, peaceableness with our brothers, a wholehearted love of the Lord, loving in him what is of the Father, fearing him because he is God, preferring nothing to him who preferred nothing to us, clinging tenaciously to his love, standing by his cross with loyalty and courage whenever there is any conflict involving his honor and his name, manifesting in our speech the constancy of our profession and under torture confidence for the fight, and in dying the endurance for which we will be crowned — this is what it means to wish to be a coheir with Christ, to keep God’s command; this is what it means to do the will of the Father.



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

 






Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time



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

Saint Augustine of Hippo comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“Since he calls us to the adoption as sons through the only begotten Son himself, he calls us to his own likeness. For, as the Lord at once adds, “He makes his sun to rise on the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” Now, if you would understand the expression “his sun” to mean not the sun that is visible to bodily eyes but his wisdom, to which the following expressions refer — “he is the brightness of eternal light” and also “The sun of justice is risen upon me,” as well as “But to you that fear the name of the Lord, the sun of justice shall arise” — then you must also understand the rain as a watering by the teaching of truth, because that teaching has become manifest to the good and to the evil. But you may prefer to understand it as the sun that is manifest to the bodily eyes of beasts as well as people and to understand the rain as the showers that produce the fruits that God has given us for the perfection of the body. I believe this to be surely the more probable meaning, since the other “sun” does not rise except on the good and the holy, for this is the very thing that the unjust bewail in the book that is called the Wisdom of Solomon: “And the sun [of understanding] has not risen upon us.” And the spiritual rain refreshes only the good, for the vine signifies the bad of whom it is said, “I will command my clouds not to rain upon it.” (Sermon on the Mount, 1)



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,
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





May your name be hallowed



Saint Cyprian of Carthage
Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from his treatise On the Lord’s Prayer

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

How merciful the Lord is to us, how kind and richly compassionate! He wished us to repeat this prayer in God’s sight, to call the Lord our Father and, as Christ is God’s Son, be called in turn sons of God! None of us would ever have dared to utter this name unless he himself had allowed us to pray in this way. And therefore, dear friends, we should bear in mind and realize that when we call God our Father we ought also to act like sons. If we are pleased to call him Father, let him in turn be pleased to call us sons.

We should live like the temples of God we are, so that it can be seen that God lives in us. No act of ours should be unworthy of the spirit. Now that we have begun to live in heaven and in spirit, all our thoughts and actions should be heavenly and spiritual; for, as the Lord God himself has said: Those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be despised. And the blessed Apostle wrote in his letter: You are not your own; you were bought with a great price. So glorify and bear God in your body.

We go on to say, May your name be hallowed. It is not that we think to make God holy by our prayers; rather we are asking God that his name may be made holy in us. Indeed, how could God be made holy, he who is the source of holiness? Still, because he himself said: Be holy, for I am holy, we pray and beseech him that we who have been hallowed in baptism may persevere in what we have begun. And we pray for this every day, for we have need of daily sanctification; sinning every day, we cleanse our faults again and again by constant sanctification.

The apostle Paul instructs us in these words concerning the sanctification which God’s loving kindness confers on us: Neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such indeed you were. But you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. We were sanctified, he says, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. Hence we make our prayer that this sanctification may remain in us. But further, our Lord who is also our judge warns those who have been cured and brought back to life by him to sin no more lest something worse happen to them. Thus we offer constant prayers and beg night and day that this sanctification and new life which is ours by God’s favor may be preserved by his protection.


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 Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church



“Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.” (Matthew 5:41)

Saint John Chrysostom comments on this verse from today’s Gospel reading:

“Do you grasp the excellence of a Christian disposition? After you give your coat and your cloak, even if your enemy should wish to subject your naked body to hardships and labors, not even then, Jesus says, must you forbid him. For he would have us possess all things in common, both our bodies and our goods, as with them that are in need, so with them that insult us. For the latter response comes from a courageous spirit, the former from mercy. Because of this, Jesus said, “If any one shall compel you to go one mile, go with him two.” Again he leads you to higher ground and commands you to manifest the same type of aspiration. For if the lesser things he spoke of at the beginning receive such great blessings, consider what sort of reward awaits those who duly perform these and what they become even before we hear of receiving rewards. You are winning full freedom from unworthy passions in a human and passible body.” (The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 18)



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





Actions speak louder than words



Saint Anthony of Padua
Priest and Doctor of the Church

An excerpt from Sermon, I, 226.

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua

The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages. These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. We are full of words but empty of actions, and therefore are cursed by the Lord, since he himself cursed the fig tree when he found no fruit but only leaves. Gregory says: “A law is laid upon the preacher to practice what he preaches.” It is useless for a man to flaunt his knowledge of the law if he undermines its teaching by his actions.

But the apostles spoke as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech. Happy the man whose words issue from the Holy Spirit and not from himself! For some men speak as their own character dictates, but steal the words of others and present them as their own and claim the credit for them. The Lord refers to such men and others like them in Jeremiah: So, then, I have a quarrel with the prophets that steal my words from each other. I have a quarrel with the prophets, says the Lord, who have only to move their tongues to utter oracles. I have a quarrel with the prophets who make prophecies out of lying dreams, who recount them and lead my people astray with their lies and their pretensions. I certainly never sent them or commissioned them, and they serve no good purpose for this people, says the Lord.

We should speak, then, as the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of speech. Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment, insofar as he infuses us with his grace, by using our bodily senses in a perfect manner and by keeping the commandments. Likewise we shall request that we may be filled with a keen sense of sorrow and with fiery tongues for confessing the faith, so that our deserved reward may be to stand in the blazing splendor of the saints and to look upon the triune God.



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






Most Holy Trinity



The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity


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

“Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you.”


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

What happens when you hear the phrase, ‘the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity’? Is there a particular word that captures your mind? Many often get hung up on the word mystery as they have heard from childhood that the Most Holy Trinity is a mystery and therefore one will never completely understand the reality. The tendency might be to dismiss this as not relevant or too intellectual and therefore a concern solely for the theological academy. Such, however, can not be dismissed as irrelevant or too intellectual. What we mere yet Graced mortals attempt to express is the reality of a Divine Community of love and life, the singular Divine Unity of three distinct divine Persons Who ground all reality, all life and define love.

Andrei Rublev's icon of the Holy Trinity in Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Part of the ‘problem’ lies, not in the word mystery itself, but how the word is grasped in Western culture. Mystery was used in the Eastern world to describe a particular way of living. In the Hellenistic world of antiquity, one was ‘initiated into the mysteries.’ Once one’s life began ‘in the mysteries,’ one’s life was different. Mystery in this original Greek context was not primarily focused on the unknowable, but on living what was known of the particular reality that now captivated one’s life. In other words, mystery was a word used to describe a very active and particular way of living life. Sure there were aspects of this living that were unknown, unclear and uncertain. The person living the mysteries knew however that deeper insights and the occasional resolution of the unknown, unclear and uncertain came only by living deeply that which is known.

Consider though how mystery is popularly understood in the West. Mystery is practically synonymous first and foremost with ‘unknowable’ or ‘can't be figured out.’ Further complications arise when these (and others) descriptions of mystery hit the pragmatic and utilitarian approach of Western culture: ‘why bother,’ why waste time trying to figure out the unfirgurable,’ etc. I'll simply take ‘it’ on faith and believe, even though I may have absolutely no idea of what I am saying.

Along with ‘taking the Holy Trinity on faith,’ Christians often try to engage theological algebra: how can 3 be 1, how can 1 be 3? We attempt an explanation with Saint Patrick's shamrock (1 leaf with 3 petals), or water (ice, liquid, steam) or a candle (wax, wick, flame). Early Christianity had its struggles with articulating an acceptable expression of the Incomprehensible. In fourth-century Constantinople, Saint Gregory of Nyssa quipped, “The whole city is full of it, the squares, the marketplaces, the crossroads, the alleyways; rag dealers, money-changers, food-sellers, they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask, “Is my bath ready?” the attendant answers that the Son was made out of nothing.”

Far from an abstract, heady teaching, the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is an invitation to live life in a particular way, a way that always leads to intensifying live and love. Saint Gregory of Nyssa in his Life of Moses summed it up this way: “May life thunder loud and pure in the proclamation of the Most Holy Trinity and may life imitate the fruit of the pomegranate!”


PREFACE

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvations,
always and everywhere to give You thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.

For with Your Only Begotten Son and the Holy Spirit
You are One God, One Lord:
not in the unity of a single person,
but in a Trinity of one substance.

For what You have revealed to us of Your glory
we believe equally of Your Son
and of the Holy Spirit,
so that, in confessing of the true and eternal Godhead,
You might be adored in what is proper to each Person,
their unity in substance, and their equality in majesty.

For this is praised by Angels and Archangels,
Cherubim, too, and Seraphim,
who never cease to cry out each day,
as with one voice they acclaim:







Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity



“The LORD begot me, the beginning of his works, the forerunner of his deeds of long ago ...” (Proverbs 8:22.)

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

First we must know this, that in Christ there is one nature, his deity, because he is the only begotten Son of the Father, and another human nature, which in very recent times he took upon him to fulfill the divine purpose. He is called “wisdom,” as Solomon said. He is also called “firstborn,” as the apostle Paul says: “who is the firstborn of all creation.” The firstborn is not, however, by nature a different being from wisdom but is one and the same. Finally, the apostle Paul says, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

If he is an “image of the invisible God,” he is an invisible image, and I would dare to add that as he is a likeness of the Father there is no time when he did not exist. Let the man who dares to say “There was a time when the Son was not” understand that this is what he will be saying: “Once wisdom did not exist, and word did not exist, and life did not exist.” (On First Principles)



Collect
God our Father, Who by sending into the world
the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification
made known to the human race Your wondrous mystery,
grant us, we pray, that in professing the true faith,
we may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory
and adore Your Unity, powerful in majesty.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
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





Light, radiance and grace are in the Trinity and from the Trinity



Saint Athansius of Alexandria
Bishop and Great Eastern Father of the Church

An excerpt from First Letter to Serapion

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

It will not be out of place to consider the ancient tradition, teaching and faith of the Catholic Church, which was revealed by the Lord, proclaimed by the apostles and guarded by the fathers. For upon this faith the Church is built, and if anyone were to lapse from it, he would no longer be a Christian either in fact or in name.

We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien element or of anything from outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of creative and created being. It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the holy Trinity is preserved. Accordingly, in the Church, one God is preached, one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.

Writing to the Corinthians about spiritual matters, Paul traces all reality back to one God, the Father, saying: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone.

Even the gifts that the Spirit dispenses to individuals are given by the Father through the Word. For all that belongs to the Father belongs also to the Son, and so the graces given by the Son in the Spirit are true gifts of the Father. Similarly, when the Spirit dwells in us, the Word who bestows the Spirit is in us too, and the Father is present in the Word. This is the meaning of the text: My Father and I will come to him and make our home with him. For where the light is, there also is the radiance; and where the radiance is, there too are its power and its resplendent grace.

This is also Paul’s teaching in his second letter to the Corinthians: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. For grace and the gift of the Trinity are given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Just as grace is given from the Father through the Son, so there could be no communication of the gift to us except in the Holy Spirit. But when we share in the Spirit, we possess the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Spirit himself.




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 Barnabas, Apostle



“Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black.” (Matthew 5:36)

Saint Chromatius of Aquileia comments on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“These words of the Lord whereby he forbids us to swear by these different elements invite a double explanation. First, he wanted to draw us away from the use of oaths and the customs of human error, lest each of us through swearing by these elements accord a creature the honor of divine veneration or believe one has impunity in swearing falsely if one swears by the elements of the world. It can also be explained in this way: When one swears by heaven and earth, one swears by him who made heaven and earth, as the Lord himself declared elsewhere: “He who swears by the altar swears by it and by all things that are on it; and he who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it.” Jesus goes on to say, “nor by Jerusalem,” for it is the city of the great King, that is, the symbol of Christ’s body, which is the spiritual and heavenly church. “Neither shall you swear,” he says, “by your head,” for according to the apostle, “the head of every man is Christ.” Therefore the one who swears by these things makes reference to him who is the author of all these things.” (Tractate on Matthew, 24)



Collect
O God,
Who decreed that Saint Barnabas,
a man filled with faith and the Holy Spirit,
should be set apart to convert the nations,
grant that the Gospel of Christ,
which he strenuously preached,
may be faithfully proclaimed by word and by deed.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
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








You are the light of the world



Saint Chromatius of Aquileia

Bishop and Ancient Christian Writer

An excerpt from Treatise on the Gospel of Saint Matthew

Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp only to put it under a bushel basket; they put it on a stand where it gives light to all in the house. The Lord called his disciples the salt of the earth because they seasoned with heavenly wisdom the hearts of men, rendered insipid by the devil. Now he calls them the light of the world as well, because they have been enlightened by him, the true and everlasting light, and have themselves become a light in the darkness.

Since he is the Sun of Justice, he fittingly calls his disciples the light of the world. The reason for this is that through them, as through shining rays, he has poured out the light of the knowledge of himself upon the entire world. For by manifesting the light of truth, they have dispelled the darkness of error from the hearts of men.

Moreover, we too have been enlightened by them. We have been made light out of darkness as the Apostle says: For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light. He says another time: For you are not sons of the night and of darkness, but you are all sons of light and of the day.

Saint John also rightly asserts in his letter: God is light, and whoever abides in God is in the light just as God himself is in the light. Therefore, because we rejoice in having been freed from the darkness of error, we should always walk in the light as children of light. This is why the Apostle says: Among them you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.

If we fail to live in the light, we shall, to our condemnation and that of others, be veiling over and obscuring by our infidelity the light men so desperately need. As we know from Scripture, the man who received the talent should have made it produce a heavenly profit, but instead he preferred to hide it away rather than put it to work and was punished as he deserved.

Consequently, that brilliant lamp which was lit for the sake of our salvation should always shine in us. For we have the lamp of the heavenly commandment and spiritual grace, to which David referred: Your law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Solomon also says this about it: For the command of the law is a lamp.

Therefore, we must not hide this lamp of law and faith. Rather, we must set it up in the Church, as on a lampstand, for the salvation of many, so that we may enjoy the light of truth itself and all believers may be enlightened.



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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