Voices ever ancient, ever new. Friday-Week21-2013.

“The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.” (Matthew 25:3-4)

Saint Augustine of Hippo offers the following commentary on these verses taken from today’s Scripture:

“It is some great thing, some exceedingly great thing, that this oil signifies. Do you think it might be charity? If we try out this hypothesis, we hazard no precipitate judgment. I will tell you why charity seems to be signified by the oil. The apostle says, “I will show you a still more excellent way.” “If I speak with the tongue of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” This is charity. It is “that way above the rest,” which is with good reason signified by the oil. For oil swims above all liquids. Pour in water, and pour in oil upon it; the oil will swim above. Pour in oil, pour in water upon it; the oil will swim above. If you keep the usual order, it will be uppermost; if you change the order, it will be uppermost. “Charity never fails.” (Sermon 93)

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist 2013.

Commenting on Mark 6:28 from today’s Scriptures, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“In what way, then, was this just man harmed by this demise, this violent death, these chains, this imprisonment? Who are those he did not set back on their feet—provided they had a penitent disposition—because of what he spoke, because of what he suffered, because of what he still proclaims in our own day—the same message he preached while he was living. Therefore, do not say: “Why was John allowed to die?” For what occurred was not a death, but a crown, not an end, but the beginning of a greater life. Learn to think and live like a Christian. You will not only remain unharmed by these events, but will reap the greatest benefits.” (On the Providence of God, 22)

Today is also the Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist. Click here for a commentary on the Baptist’s death by Saint Bede the Venerable (the selection is taken from today’s Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings).

Pope Benedict XVI spoke on Saint John the Baptist during an audience in August 2012.

Collect

O God,
Who willed that Saint John the Baptist
should go ahead of Your Son
both in his birth and in his death,
grant that, as he died a Martyr for truth and justice,
we, too, may fight hard for the confession of what you teach.
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.

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Saint Augustine 2013.

Commenting on Matthew 23:27 from today’s Scriptures, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“You have been counted worthy to become temples of God. But you have instead suddenly become more like sepulchers, having the same sort of smell. This is dreadful. It is extreme wretchedness that one in whom Christ dwells and in whom the Holy Spirit has worked such great works should turn out to be a sepulcher, a place for death. What wretchedness is this? What mourning and lamentation does this call for! The members of the body of Christ have become a tomb of uncleanness? Remember your sonship and how you were born. Consider of what things you have been counted worthy. Recall what sort of garment you received in baptism. You were intended to be a temple without fault, beautiful, not adorned with gold or pearls but with the spirit that is more precious than these. You are hardly ready to appear in the city above if you remain a sepulcher below. For if here this is forbidden, much more there. Even here you are an object of scorn. You carry around a dead soul. You are shunned. Be honest. If anyone were to go around carrying about a dead body, wouldn’t everyone else rush for cover! Wouldn’t they all flee? But this is what you are like. You go about carrying a corpse far more grievous than this. It is a soul deadened by sins, a soul paralyzed.” (The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 73)

Today is also the memorial of Saint Augustine of Hippo, a Father of the Church. Click here for an excerpt from his writings (the selection is taken from today’s Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings).

Pope Benedict XVI devoted a number of General Audiences to Saint Augustine: Audience 1, Audience 2, Audience 3, Audience 4, and Audience 5.

Collect

Renew in your Church, we pray, O Lord,
that spirit with which You endowed
Your Bishop Saint Augustine that,
filled with the same spirit,
we may thirst for you,
the sole fount of true wisdom,
and seek you, the author of heavenly love.
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.

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Saint Monica 2013.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.” (Matthew 23:25)

In commenting on this verse from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew from today’s Mass Readings, Origen of Alexandria writes:

“This passage teaches us that we should hasten to be righteous, not merely to appear so. Whoever strives only to appear righteous will cleanse his exterior and will take great care of what can be seen by others but will neglect his heart and his conscience. He fails to realize that the one who is eager to purify his interior life and his thoughts will also naturally want to give a healthy outward appearance as well. Whoever works hard on the externals but neglects his interior life, however, will inevitably be filled with avarice, lust, malice, and many other kinds of evil. For the one who is solicitous of his own interior salvation also takes care of his external, public reputation. But not everyone who cares first about his public reputation is also solicitous of his interior salvation. In this connection, it is written that “whoever sees a woman and lusts after her has committed adultery with her in his heart.” He who refrains from acts of fornication, therefore, but commits fornication by lusting in his heart is like the one who cleanses the outside of the cup and plate while the inside is left full of intemperance. Whoever performs acts of mercy for the purpose of earning human respect, doing his good deeds “to be seen by men,” also seems to cleanse only the exterior of the cup and plate but is full of intemperance and lust for vainglory within.” (Commentary on Matthew, 21)

Today is the Memorial of Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo. In this excerpt from Saint Augustine’s work Confessions, he writes of his mother's death.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke of Saint Monica during the Angelus on 30 August 2009.

Collect

O God,
Who console the sorrowful and
Who mercifully accepted the motherly tears of
Saint Monica for the conversion of her son Augustine,
grant us, through the intercession of them both,
that we may bitterly regret our sins and
find the grace of your pardon.
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.

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Monday-Week21-2013

“You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?” (Matthew 22:19)

In commenting on this verse from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew from today’s Mass Readings, Origen of Alexandria writes:

“Anyone who thinks that his own almsgiving, his own fasting, his own psalms and prayers are in themselves great and who, without good judgment, blesses them and does not reflect that it is just from such a heart that his almsgiving or psalms or prayers or fasting are offered — such a man is blind. For indeed his heart is the altar that sanctifies his offering which is the heart of the world. The heart and the conscience of such a man “do not feel remorse but have trust in God,” because his own heart has been rightly formed. He does not rely on his gifts as such or the words of his prayers or of his psalms — although they may seem well composed and chosen from the Scriptures — but on the heart rightly formed.

Whoever places his own witness on the altar, that is, his own conscience and the center of his heart, such a man swears by the altar, embracing everything which is contained in it. One who swears according to what we attest to by the temple, that is, “through the whole sense of Scriptures,” such a man seems to swear according to the word and the will of God which is contained in it. Such a man in this sense swears upon the temple (upon all the Scriptures) and upon the altar (upon the whole heart), that is, an understanding of the sense of the whole of the Scriptures and upon the whole heart. The temple is the glory of God, which “we see as in a mirror darkly.” The heavens, however, are above the temple of God, in which sits the throne of God, on which we may look “with our face uncovered” when he comes.” (Commentary on Matthew, 18)

Collect

O God,
Who cause the minds of the faithful
to unite in a single purpose,
grant your people to love what You command
and to desire what you promise, that,
amid the uncertainties of this world,
our hearts may be fixed on that place
where true gladness is found.
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.

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Sunday-Week21-2013.

“Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” (Luke 13:23-24)

In commenting on these verses from the Gospel according to Saint Luke from today’s Mass Readings, Cyril of Alexandria writes:

“Strive to enter in by the narrow door.” This reply may seem perhaps to wander from the scope of the question. The man wanted to learn whether there would be few who are saved, but he explained to him the way whereby he might be saved himself. He said, “Strive to enter in by the narrow door.” What do we answer to this objection? It was a necessary and valuable thing to know how a man may obtain salvation. He is purposely silent to the useless question. He proceeds to speak of what was essential, namely, of the knowledge necessary for the performance of those duties by which people can enter the narrow door.

I now consider it my duty to mention why the door to life is narrow. Whoever would enter must first before everything else possess an upright and uncorrupted faith and then a spotless morality, in which there is no possibility of blame, according to the measure of human righteousness…. One who has attained to this in mind and spiritual strength will enter easily by the narrow door and run along the narrow way.

“Wide is the door, and broad the way that brings down many to destruction.” What are we to understand by its broadness? It means an unrestrained tendency toward carnal lust and a shameful and pleasure-loving life. It is luxurious feasts, parties, banquets and unrestricted inclinations to everything that is condemned by the law and displeasing to God. A stubborn mind will not bow to the yoke of the law. This life is cursed and relaxed in all carelessness. Thrusting from it the divine law and completely unmindful of the sacred commandments, wealth, vices, scorn, pride and the empty imagination of earthly pride spring from it. Those who would enter in by the narrow door must withdraw from all these things, be with Christ and keep the festival with him.

Voices ever ancient, ever new. Feast of Saint Bartholomew 2013

“But Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”” (John 1:46)

In commenting on John 1:46 from today’s Mass Readings, Theodore of Mopsuesteia writes:

“This is not exactly the way this sentence appears, but rather it should be understood in a different and more doubtful sense, as in “How is it possible that anything good comes out of Nazareth?” In fact, among the Jews the name of that village was much despised, because a great number of its inhabitants were pagans, and it seemed impossible that anything good might come out from there. Therefore also the Pharisees said to Nicodemus, “Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.” And so it is only right that Philip says to Nathanael, “Come and see.” Since there is now a contrast to that old opinion, [he seems to be saying], I promise to show you the real facts. This was superfluous, otherwise, for someone who had once believed in the truth.” (Commentary on John, 1)

Today is the Feast of Saint Bartholomew. In his Wednesday audience on 4 October 2006, Pope Benedict XVI offered this reflection on Saint Bartholomew.