Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

“So to them he addressed this parable. “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?” (Luke 15:3-4.)

Saint Ambrose of Milan comments on these verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“St. Luke did not idly present three parables in a row. By the parables of the sheep that strayed and was found, the coin which was lost and was found, and the son who was dead and came to life, we may cure our wounds, being encouraged by a threefold remedy. “A threefold cord will not be broken.” Who are the father, the shepherd and the woman? They are God the Father, Christ and the church. Christ carries you on his body, he who took your sins on himself. The church seeks, and the Father receives. The shepherd carries. The mother searches. The father clothes. First mercy comes, then intercession, and third reconciliation. Each complements the other. The Savior rescues, the church intercedes, and the Creator reconciles. The mercy of the divine act is the same, but the grace differs according to our merits. The weary sheep is recalled by the shepherd, the coin which was lost is found, the son retraces his steps to his father and returns, guilty of error but totally repentant.”

Let us rejoice that the sheep that had strayed in Adam is lifted on Christ. The shoulders of Christ are the arms of the cross. There, I laid down my sins. I rested on the neck of that noble yoke. The sheep is one in kind, not in appearance, because “we are all one body” but many members. It is written, “You are the body of Christ, and members individually.” “The Son of man came to seek and save what was lost.”11 He sought all, because “as in Adam all men die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

The shepherd is rich. We are his hundredth portion. He has innumerable flocks of angels, of archangels, of dominions, of powers, of thrones, of the others whom he left on the mountains. Since these are rational, they fittingly rejoice in the salvation of people. Although this also may be of benefit as an incentive to honesty, if each believes that his conversion would be pleasing to the hosts of angels, whose protection is to be sought and whose displeasure feared. Be a source of joy to the angels. May they rejoice in your return. (Exposition on the Gospel of Luke, 7.)

Collect

O God,
Who in the Heart of Your Son,
wounded by our sins,
bestow on us in mercy
the boundless treasures of Your love,
grant, we pray,
that, in paying him the homage of our devotion,
we may also offer worthy reparation.
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

 

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With you is the source of life

Saint Bonaventure

Bishop and Doctor of the Church

An excerpt from his Lignum vitae (Tree of Life)

Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Take thought now, redeemed man, and consider how great and worthy is he who hangs on the cross for you. His death brings the dead to life, but at his passing heaven and earth are plunged into mourning and hard rocks are split asunder.

It was a divine decree that permitted one of the soldiers to open his sacred side with a lance. This was done so that the Church might be formed from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death on the cross, and so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: They shall look on him whom they pierced. The blood and water which poured out at that moment were the price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret abyss of our Lord’s heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of grace, while for those already living in Christ it became a spring of living water welling up to life everlasting.

Arise, then, beloved of Christ! Imitate the dove that nests in a hole in the cliff, keeping watch at the entrance like the sparrow that finds a home. There like the turtledove hide your little ones, the fruit of your chaste love. Press your lips to the fountain, draw water from the wells of your Savior; for this is the spring flowing out of the middle of paradise, dividing into four rivers, inundating devout hearts, watering the whole earth and making it fertile.

Run with eager desire to this source of life and light, all you who are vowed to God’s service. Come, whoever you may be, and cry out to him with all the strength of your heart. “O indescribable beauty of the most high God and purest radiance of eternal light! Life that gives all life, light that is the source of every other light, preserving in everlasting splendor the myriad flames that have shone before the throne of your divinity from the dawn of time! Eternal and inaccessible fountain, clear and sweet stream flowing from a hidden spring, unseen by mortal eye! None can fathom your depths nor survey your boundaries, none can measure your breadth, nothing can sully your purity. From you flows the river which gladdens the city of God and makes us cry out with joy and thanksgiving in hymns of praise to you, for we know by our own experience that with you is the source of life, and in your light we see light.

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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Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

“He made my mouth like a sharp-edged sword,

concealed me, shielded by his hand.

He made me a sharpened arrow,

in his quiver he hid me.” (Isaiah 49:2)

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

“If anyone has been able to hold in the breadth of his mind and to consider the glory and splendor of all those things created in him, he will be struck by their very beauty and transfixed by the magnificence of their brilliance or, as the prophet says, “by the chosen arrow.” And he will receive from him the saving wound and will burn with the blessed fire of his love.” (Commentary on the Song of Songs, Prologue)

Collect

O God,
Who raised up Saint John the Baptist
to make ready a nation
fit for Christ the Lord,
give Your people, we pray,
the grace of spiritual joys
and direct the hearts of all the faithful
into the way of salvation and peace.
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. 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

The voice of one crying in the wilderness

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Sermon 293

Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

The Church observes the birth of John as a hallowed event. We have no such commemoration for any other fathers; but it is significant that we celebrate the birthdays of John and of Jesus. This day cannot be passed by. And even if my explanation does not match the dignity of the feast, you may still meditate on it with great depth and profit.

John is born of a woman too old for childbirth; Christ was born of a youthful virgin. The news of John’s birth was met with incredulity, and his father was struck dumb. Christ’s birth was believed, and he was conceived through faith.

Such is the topic, as I have presented it, for our inquiry and discussion. But as I said before, if I lack either the time or the ability to study the implications of so profound a mystery, he who speaks within you even when I am not here will teach you better; it is he whom you contemplate with devotion, whom you have welcomed into your hearts, whose temples you have become.

John, then, appears as the boundary between the two testaments, the old and the new. That he is a sort of boundary the Lord himself bears witness, when he speaks of the law and the prophets up until John the Baptist. Thus he represents times past and is the herald of the new era to come. As a representative of the past, he is born of aged parents; as herald of the new, he is declared to be a prophet while still in his mother’s womb. For when yet unborn, he leapt in his mother’s womb at the arrival of blessed Mary. In that womb he had already been designated a prophet, even before he was born; it was revealed that he was to be Christ’s precursor, before they ever saw one another. These are divine happenings, going beyond the limits of our human fraility. Eventually he is born, he receives his name, his father’s tongue is loosened. See how these events reflect reality.

Zechariah is silent and loses his voice until John, the precursor of the Lord, is born and restores his voice. The silence of Zechariah is nothing but the age of prophecy lying hidden, obscured, as it were, and concealed before the preaching of Christ. At John’s arrival, it becomes clear when the one who was being prophesied is about to come. The release of Zechariah’s voice at the birth of John is a parallel to the rending of the veil at Christ’s crucifixion. If John were announcing his own coming, Zechariah’s lips would not have been opened. The tongue is loosened because a voice is born. For when John was preaching the Lord’s coming he was asked: Who are you? And he replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. The voice is John, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word. John was a voice that lasted only for a time; Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.

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 Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

“Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:17.)

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

“Even though Jesus seems to make virtually the same point a second time, it is hardly redundant. For in the second time around he prevents anyone from concluding, “The evil tree bears evil fruit, but it also bears good fruit, so as to make it difficult to recognize an evil tree, because the crop is of two kinds.” No. Jesus says, “This is not so. For the evil tree bears only evil fruits and would never bear good fruits. So also it is the same way with the opposite kind of tree.”

What then? Is there no such thing as a good person who becomes corrupt? Or a corrupt person who becomes good? Isn’t life full of many examples of such reversals? But the Messiah is not saying that the evil person is incapable of changing or that the good person will never fail in anything. But he is saying that so long as a person is living in a degenerate way, he will not be able to generate good fruit. For he may indeed change to virtue, being evil, but while continuing in wickedness, he will not bear good fruit.

What then? Did not David, even though good, bear evil fruit? No, because he did not bear evil fruit while remaining good but while being changed. For if indeed he had remained continually good as he had been, he would not have produced the bad fruit. For it surely was not while abiding in the habits of excellence that he had the audacity to do the very things that he had the audacity to do.” (The Gospel of Matthew: Homily, 23.)

Collect

Grant, O Lord,
that we may always revere and love Your holy Name,
for You never deprive of Your guidance
those You set firm on the foundation of Your love.
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, Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

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True, perfect and eternal friendship

Saint Aelred of Rievaulx

(Abbot)

An excerpt from On Spiritual Friendship

Wednesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Jonathan, outstanding among all young men, took no heed of his royal lineage or his hope of the throne, but allied himself with David the servant and made him his equal in friendship before the Lord. The king had made David a fugitive, forced him to hide in the desert, and condemned him to death. And yet Jonathan preferred David to himself, exalting him, humbling himself. You, he said, will be king and I will follow after you.

What a splendid picture of true friendship! What an astonishing situation! Here was the king, raging against his servant and stirring up the whole country as if David were aiming at the crown. He accuses the priests of treason and puts them to death on a mere suspicion. He combs and searches woods and valleys, besieges the mountains and rocky crags with troops, and every man is sworn to wreak vengeance upon the source of the king’s indignation. Only Jonathan, who alone should have had greater cause for envy, thought it right to resist his father. Putting himself at the service of his friend, he offered help and advice in his time of need. Jonathan set friendship above a kingdom. You are to be the king, he said, and I will be second to you. And still the father tried to incite his son to envy David. He covered him with abuse and frightened him by threatening to deprive him of the kingdom and strip him of his rank.

Even when the king pronounced sentence of death upon David, Jonathan still did not desert his friend. Why should David die? How has he sinned? What has he done? When he risked his life and killed the Philistine, you rejoiced. Why then should he die? So maddened was the king at these words that he tried to pin Jonathan to the wall with his spear, heaping upon him further abuse and threats: Bastard son of a wayward woman, he screamed, I know well that, to your undoing and that of your shameful mother’s, you love him. With this he spewed forth the full measure of his venom over Jonathan and uttered the words that were his final attempt to arouse bitter envy and jealous ambition: As long as the son of Jesse lives, your kingdom shall never be established.

Who would not be moved to envy by these words? Whose love, whose favor, whose abiding friendship would not be corrupted, weakened and destroyed by such an utterance? But in his great love, this young man kept faith with his friend. He was steadfast in the face of threats, unmoved by insults; forgetting renown, he thought only of service. He spurned a kingdom for the sake of friendship. You, he said, will be king, and I will be second to you.

This is what truly perfect, stable and lasting friendship is, a tie that envy cannot spoil, nor suspicion weaken, nor ambition destroy. A friendship so tempted yielded not an inch, was buffeted but did not collapse. In the face of so many insults, it remained unshaken. Go, therefore, and do likewise.

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 Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.” (Matthew 7:13.)

In commenting on this verse from today’s Gospel, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“Remember that later Jesus would say, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” And here he implies the same thing. Does it not seem inconsistent then to say here that the good road is narrow and constricted? Pay attention. He has made it clear the burden is very light, easy and agreeable. “But how,” one may say, “is the narrow and constricted road easy?” Because it is both a gate and a road. The other road is, of course, both a gate and a road, but on that way there is nothing that is enduring. All things on that way are temporary, both things pleasant and painful.

It is not only on the way that the things of excellence become easy. In the end they become even more agreeable. For it is not just the passing away of toil and sweating but also the anticipated arrival at a pleasant destination that is sufficient to encourage the traveler. For this road ends in life! The result is that both the temporary nature of the toils and the eternal nature of the victor’s crowns, combined with the fact that these toils come first and the victor’s crowns come afterward, become a hearty encouragement.” (The Gospel of Matthew Homily 23.)

Collect

O God,
giver of heavenly gifts,
who in Saint Aloysius Gonzaga
joined penitence
to a wonderful innocence of life,
grant, through his merits and intercession,
that, though we have failed
to follow him in innocence,
we may imitate him in penitence
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

 

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God’s mercies shall be my song for ever

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Religious

An excerpt from A Letter to His Mother

Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious

May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honored lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him.

The divine goodness, most honored lady, is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and feeble labors, God is calling me to eternal rest; his voice from heaven invites me to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for the tears I have so seldom shed.

Take care above all things, most honored lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Savior; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness. When he takes away what he once lent us, his purpose is to store our treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings that we ourselves would most choose to have.

I write all this with the one desire that you and all my family may consider my departure a joy and favor and that you especially may speed with a mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which all hopes belong. I write the more willingly because I have no clearer way of expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.

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 Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

“You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5.)

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

“The word hypocrite is aptly employed here, since the denouncing of evils is best viewed as a matter only for upright persons of goodwill. When the wicked engage in it, they are like impersonators, masqueraders, hiding their real selves behind a mask, while they portray another’s character through the mask. The word hypocrites in fact signifies pretenders. Hence we ought especially to avoid that meddlesome class of pretenders who under the pretense of seeking advice undertake the censure of all kinds of vices. They are often moved by hatred and malice.

Rather, whenever necessity compels one to reprove or rebuke another, we ought to proceed with godly discernment and caution. First of all, let us consider whether the other fault is such as we ourselves have never had or whether it is one that we have overcome. Then, if we have never had such a fault, let us remember that we are human and could have had it. But if we have had it and are rid of it now, let us remember our common frailty, in order that mercy, not hatred, may lead us to the giving of correction and admonition. In this way, whether the admonition occasions the amendment or the worsening of the one for whose sake we are offering it (for the result cannot be foreseen), we ourselves shall be made safe through singleness of eye. But if on reflection we find that we ourselves have the same fault as the one we are about to reprove, let us neither correct nor rebuke that one. Rather, let us bemoan the fault ourselves and induce that person to a similar concern, without asking him to submit to our correction.” (Sermon on the Mount, 2.)

Collect

Grant, O Lord,
that we may always revere
and love Your Holy Name,
for You never deprive of Your guidance
those You set firm
on the foundation of Your love.
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. 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 Christian is another Christ

Saint Gregory of Nyssa

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his treatise On Christian Perfection

Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

No one has known Christ better than Paul, nor surpassed him in the careful example he gave of what anyone should be who bears Christ’s name. So precisely did he mirror his Master that he became his very image. By a painstaking imitation, he was transformed into his model and it seemed to be no longer Paul who lived and spoke, but Christ himself. He shows his keen awareness of this grace when he refers to the Corinthians’ desire for proof that Christ was speaking in him; as he says: It is no longer I who live: it is Christ who lives in me.

Paul teaches us the power of Christ’s name when he calls him the power and wisdom of God, our peace, the unapproachable light where God dwells, our expiation and redemption, our great high priest, our paschal sacrifice, our propitiation; when he declares him to be the radiance of God’s glory, the very pattern of his nature, the creator of all ages, our spiritual food and drink, the rock and the water, the bedrock of our faith, the cornerstone, the visible image of the invisible God. He goes on to speak of him as the mighty God, the head of his body, the Church, the firstborn of the new creation, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep, the firstborn of the dead, the eldest of many brothers; he tells us that Christ is the mediator between God and man, the only begotten Son crowned with glory and honor, the Lord of glory, the beginning of all things, the king of justice and of peace, the king of the whole universe, ruling a realm that has no limits.

Paul calls Christ by many other titles too numerous to recall here. Their cumulative force will give some conception of the marvelous content of the name “Christ,” revealing to us his inexpressible majesty, insofar as our minds and thought can comprehend it. Since, by the goodness of God, we who are called “Christians” have been granted the honor of sharing this name, the greatest, the highest, the most sublime of all names, it follows that each of the titles that express its meaning should be clearly reflected in us. If we are not to lie when we call ourselves “Christians,” we must bear witness to it by our way of living.

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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