Saints speak in different ways. Listen first to the prose of St. Thomas Aquinas and then the poetry of St.Bernard:
“Why did the Son of God have to suffer for us? There was a great need, and it can be considered in a twofold way: in the first place, as a remedy for sin, and secondly, as an example of how to act.
It is a remedy, for, in the face of all the evils which we incur on account of our sins, we have found relief through the passion of Christ. Yet, it is no less an example, for the passion of Christ completely suffices to fashion our lives.” ( Thomas Aquinas)
“Where can the weak find a place of firm security and peace, except in the wounds of the Saviour? Indeed, the more secure is my place there, the more he can do to help me. The world rages, the flesh is heavy, and the devil lays his snares, but I do not fall, for my feet are planted on firm rock. I may have sinned gravely. My conscience would be distressed, but it would not be in turmoil, for I would recall the wounds of the Lord: he was wounded for our iniquities…
They pierced his hands and feet and opened his side with a spear… But the piercing nail has become a key to unlock the door, that I may see the good will of the Lord. And what can I see as I look through the hole? Both the nail and the wound cry out that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The sword pierced his soul and came close to his heart, so that he might be able to feel compassion for me in my weaknesses.
Through these sacred wounds we can see the secret of his heart, the great mystery of love, the sincerity of his mercy with which he visited us from on high. Where have your love, your mercy, your compassion shone out more luminously than in your wounds, sweet, gentle Lord of mercy? More mercy than this no one has than that he lay down his life for those who are doomed to death.” (St. Bernard)
Eamon Duffy in his fine study of the popes, “Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes”, describes St. Pius X as a pope who looked forward and looked backward. His pastoral reforms of the liturgy, his encouragement of frequent Communion and reform of church prayers, for example, anticipated many of the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In fact, he promoted the beginnings of the modern liturgical movement.
His fear for the integrity of church doctrine, on the other hand, slowed the church in adapting itself to a changing world. Like us all, popes have their strengths and weaknesses. Even saints have their strengths and weaknesses.
The pope’s reflection on the psalms, found in our liturgy today, reveals his love for the psalms, which are such an important part of our liturgy.
The psalms teach us how to pray. They provide a way to praise God and the words to bless God.
“The psalms have also a wonderful power to awaken in our hearts the desire for every virtue. Athanasius says: Though all Scripture, both old and new, is divinely inspired and has its use in teaching, the Book of Psalms, like a garden enclosing the fruits of all the other books, produces its fruits in song… The psalms seem to me to be like a mirror, in which the person using them can see himself and the stirrings of his own heart; he can recite them against the background of his own emotions.
Augustine says in his Confessions: How I wept when I heard your hymns and canticles. Those voices flowed into my ears, truth filtered into my heart, and from my heart surged waves of devotion. Tears ran down, and I was happy in my tears.
Who could fail to be moved by those many passages in the psalms which set forth so profoundly the infinite majesty of God, his omnipotence, his justice and goodness and clemency, too deep for words, and all the other infinite qualities of his that deserve our praise?
Who could fail to be roused to the same emotions by the prayers of thanksgiving to God for blessings received, by the petitions, so humble and confident, for blessings still awaited, by the cries of a soul in sorrow for sin committed?
Who would not be fired with love as he looks on the likeness of Christ, the redeemer, here so lovingly foretold? His was the voice Augustine heard in every psalm, the voice of praise, of suffering, of joyful expectation, of present distress.”
Artificial Intelligence, Ai, is here. It’s taking what archeologists and historians have found and reconstructing places like Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusalem and Rome; we can see what daily life was like in those cities, what the streets were like, the buildings, what the people looked like, how the society functioned in the time of Jesus and the prophets. It gives us a fresh look at history.
I’ve been learning more about the world Ezekiel lived in from Ai reconstructions..
Many scholars think Ezekiel was a priest from Jerusalem taken with other priests and Jewish leaders as slaves to Babylon. Most of his writings are addressed to Jews enslaved there.
Babylon’s rulers then were building the biggest and most impressive city in the world, and so after capturing Jerusalem they brought a large number of Jerusalem’s leading class to Babylon as slaves. Why Jerusalem’s leading class ? Because they had already built a luxurious city in Jerusalem.They built fine houses; they knew where to go to for the finest goods and foods. They were builders and developers of a city.
They did it, however, as earlier prophets like Nahum and Haggai tell us, by exploiting the poor. Now they themselves were slaves. The Babylonians brought many conquered peoples to the city for the back-breaking work of digging canals and carrying bricks, but they brought the Jewish leading class for another role: they were experienced builders.
In Wednesday’s reading this week Ezekiel speaks to the Jewish exiles, not to praise them for their building skills, but to remind them they were Israel’s failed shepherds:
“Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds
of Israel who have been pasturing themselves!…You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured. You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost, but you lorded it over them harshly and brutally.”
Let’s not see Ezekiel’s critique limited to Jewish leaders: he’s criticizing all rulers, all leaders, all shepherds who make themselves gods, especially at the expense of the poor. He’s careful in his criticism. He avoids the rulers of Babylon. Instead he criticizes the king of Tyre, who stands for them all. Anyone claiming absolute power over another makes himself a god.
The Babylonians tried taking away the identity of their slaves by forbidding them from keeping their idols and worshipping their gods. Only Marduk, the Babylonian god. was to be worshipped. They tried to make the Jews Babylonians.
In our final readings this week Ezekiel leaves his critique of the shepherds for a promise of the future for his own people in exile. God offers mercy and a vision of a renewed kingdom
“ For I will take you away from among the nations, gather you from all the foreign lands, and bring you back to your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” Thursday)
Dry bones, littered on the ground, will rise. “Prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them.” (Friday)
Floods of living water will flow over Jerusalem. “And I saw that the temple was filled with the glory of the LORD. Then I heard someone speaking to me from the temple, while the man stood beside me. The voice said to me: Son of man, this is where my throne shall be, this is where I will set the soles of my feet; here I will dwell among the children of Israel forever.” (Saturday)
August 20th we remember St. Bernard, a spiritual teacher who never goes out of date and a major figure in the renewal of the church in the 12th century.
The image of Jesus communing with Bernard from a painting from 16th century Florence captures the spirituality of the saint. Bernard was attracted to the humanity of Christ, especially his love shown on Calvary. In this scene, Jesus bends down to Bernard to embrace him. The nails cannot hold him from loving the one kneeling before him. Christ’s love is stronger than the images of death, pictured beneath the cross. That has to be the City of Florence in the background. Christ’s love in never confined to one person or age or place.
Bernard lived in “an age of love”, which saw Jesus reaching out to humanity, not primarily humanity crippled by sin, but humanity as his beloved. It’s not surprising that Bernard’s sermons on “The Song of Songs” is considered his greatest work. “The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks nothing in return but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?… It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given.”
Bernard was a leader in the 11th century Cistercian reform of Benedictine monasticism which emphasized simplicity of life and devotion to the humanity of Christ. He became a monk at the monastery of Clairvaux in 1112, and then its abbot. By the time of his death in 1153 the order numbered 339 monasteries throughout Europe.
Growth of the Cistercians was due to their support of church reform initiated by Pope Gregory VII, who enlisted monastic orders in his crucial efforts for reforming the papacy. Bernard played an important part in the Gregorian reform as advisor to popes, bishops and secular leaders.
He was a tireless writer whose letters and sermons inspired Christians throughout Europe. He was a healer whose presence drew crowds of people seeking healing. He was a powerful voice promoting the Crusades to rescue the Holy Land..
Here is how he advises we approach God::
“The first involves humbling ourselves before God: “Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved. And again, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul because I have sinned against you.
Then, leaving sorrow and ourselves behind, it’s time to “abide rather in the Spirit of God with great delight. No longer do we consider what is the will of God for us, but rather what it is in itself.
Under the guidance of the Spirit who gazes into the deep things of God, let us reflect how gracious the Lord is and how good he is in himself. Let us join the Prophet in praying that we may see the Lord’s will and frequent not our own hearts but the Lord’s temple; and let us also say, My soul is humbled within me, therefore I shall be mindful of you.
These two stages sum up the whole of the spiritual life: when we contemplate ourselves we are troubled, but our sadness saves us and brings us to contemplate God. That contemplation in turn gives us the consolation of the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Contemplating ourselves brings fear and humility; contemplating God brings us hope and love.”
“Jesus, what made you so small? Love.”
Lord God, you made Saint Bernard burn with zeal for your house, and gave him grace to enkindle and enlighten others in your Church.Grant that by his prayer we may be filled with the same spirit and always live as children of the light.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.
In our first readings for yesterday and today at Mass, the Prophet Ezekiel ( 24,1-11) has some wise but hard words for secular and religious leaders. St. Matthew’s gospel today about the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20,1-16) has some lessons for ordinary people too.
Yesterday Ezekiel spoke against the King of Tyre for making himself a god. Clever, successful, sure of himself, the King of Tyre sits on the throne that belongs to God alone. He will be pulled from his throne and put to a violent death.
Remember, though, Ezekiel is a Jewish exile in Babylon. He’s really speaking, not about the ruler in Tyre, but about the ruler in Babylon. Leaders like him shouldn’t make themselves gods. Only God is king over all. That’s true today as well as then.
Today, Ezekiel excoriates the shepherds of Israel, the Jewish religious leaders, who gouge their sheep for their own benefit. Woe to these shepherds, the Lord says.
Notice that God doesn’t say he will replace the shepherds with other shepherds. God himself will be their shepherd.
“Thus says the Lord GOD: I swear I am coming against these shepherds. I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep …I will save my sheep… I myself will look after and tend my sheep.”
There’s no sign that God gives up on his people in our reading. In fact, God becomes more engaged than ever. He comes when times are bad. “I myself will look after and tend my sheep.” The Lord is our shepherd.
The gospel reading from Matthew about the workers in the vineyard may also say something to us today. First, it says the owner of the vineyard is looking for a harvest. He wants it, it’s close to his heart, and so he calls laborers, as many as he can get, at any time he can get them.
God wills a kingdom to come.
The laborers ( they’re us) have their own ideas how it will come. They want to control the way things are done. They have fixed ideas and dispute the owner of the vineyard. He’s not fair, they say. Actually, he’s far more generous than their ideas make him to be.
Keep looking at the Word of God. Far wiser that what you hear and see on CNN, Fox, CBS, the New York Times, ABC. or Facebook, or Twitter…..
We will be reading from St.Paul’s 1st Letter to the Thessalonians this week and ending our reading from the Gospel of Matthew. On Monday, the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time we begin reading from the Gospel of Luke.
! Thessalonians was written early on, during Paul’s 2nd missionary journey with Silvanus and Timothy. Written about 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the letter is Paul’s first letter and the first writing of the New Testament.
Paul’s message to the people of Thessalonika can be summarized in a sentence. “ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (Thes. 4:14)
In his letter Paul commends the Thessalonians, who are mostly Gentiles. They received Paul’s message through the power of the Holy Spirit, not just through Paul’s words. Paul’s converts are experiencing strong opposition from Jews as well as from their own people, who seem to portray Paul and his companions as religious peddlers trying to profit from a gullible audience.
Paul mentions the persecution going on in Judea. In this week’s gospel readings from Matthew Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees who oppose him in strong terms. Commentators believe Matthew’s gospel may well describe the opposition Jesus’ followers faced after his death and resurrection, as well as the opposition Jesus faced in his lifetime. Is this why the compilers of our lectionary put these two readings together. Matthew’s gospel is a commentary on the opposition the Thessalonians face, as well as the opposition Jesus faced.
Paul assumes the final coming of Jesus will occur in his own lifetime, but the day is unknown. It will come as a “thief in the night.” ( 1 Thes 5: 1-2) Instead of focusing on the last days, Paul tells the Thessalonians to live today. The same theme is repeated in Matthew’s gospel this week. (Thursday)“Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
Little prayers are just that–the small, taken-for-granted prayers we pray all the time. Like “Amen.” How many times do we say that word in prayer? Usually we end all our prayers with it.
What does it mean? I suppose we could say it means “yes” in English. “Si” in Spanish or Italian. “Ya” in German. If you look it up in the dictionary, you find it traced back into the Greek and then to the Hebrew. Amen means “so be it”; a strong “yes,” and it’s been part of the language of our faith for centuries.
Here we are in the 21st century using a word generations before us have used; we draw on the faith of generations before us to say, “Yes, I believe,” “Amen” to God’s word to us and our word to God.
“The Lord be with you,” “And with your spirit.” Another little prayer, wishing that God be with us and bring us together in faith. We can trace that little prayer back generations too.
Little prayers can give us a way to express what we can hardly put into words or understand. Besides words, they can also be simple gestures, like the Sign of the Cross; they can be moments of listening or seeing and waiting in silent attention before God.
Psalm 123 describes a servant waiting and watching before her mistress.
“To you I lift up my eyes, you who dwell in the heavens. My eyes like the eyes of slaves On the hand of their lords. Like the eyes of a servant On the hand of her mistress, So our eyes are on the Lord our God Till he show us his mercy.”
Little prayers can be a cry or even tears. You often hear that kind of prayer in the psalms:
“I cried to you, Lord, and you heard me,” the psalmist says in Psalm 30.
Remember the simple cry of the Canaanite woman: “Have pity on me, Son of David…Please, Lord” (Matthew 15:21).
Little prayers are important, they’re not little at all.
Readings in our lectionary this week are from chapters 19-23 of Matthews Gospel. Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem after his ministry in Galilee. On the way he faces increased opposition from the Pharisees and the Sadducees. His words are directed to them, but they are also directed to the church of his time, which may have its Pharisees and Sadducees as well.
The rich young man seems drawn to follow Jesus, but he goes away sad, “for he has many possessions.” (Monday} His departure and Jesus warning about the lure of riches causes his disciples to ask if anyone can be saved. Jesus answers “Nothing is impossible with God” and he promises his disciples “everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” (Tuesday}
Matthew’s reading about the laborers in the vineyard reminds us that the mercy of God is unpredictable. (Wednesday}
The readings from Ezekiel end this week with a picture of the temple where God dwells, free from the political abominations of men. Before the temple was like the private chapel of the king. Now God is king.
St. Bernard is an important saint we celebrate this week. His preaching moved so many people to follow Jesus Christ. His devotion to the gospel gave him words of wisdom. Bernard’s life and preaching was ” flooded by the splendor of the divine Word.” (Thursday}
St. Pius X promoted the liturgy as the prayer of the church. The popes today are following him, (Friday)
Following the Feast of the Assumption, we celebrate Mary crowned as Queen of Heaven on Saturday.
We celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven August 15th. It’s the most important feast of Mary in the church’s calendar. Where did it come from?
There’s no account of Mary’s death or assumption into heaven in scripture. An account in the apocryphal body of literature called the Transitus Mariae, popular in the Christian churches of the east from the 5th century, describes the return of the apostles to Jerusalem for Mary’s burial and their discovery that her body was taken up to heaven. The writings attest to an early interest in the death of Mary in some parts of the early church.
The first liturgical celebrations of Mary’s death and assumption to heaven took place in Jerusalem at her tomb (above) on the Mount of Olives about the 5th century. The Roman Catholic Church draws her present belief from this early tradition and her conviction that Mary is “wholly united with her son in the work of salvation.” For scriptural support, the church looks to sources like Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians–the second reading at Mass for August 15th – to understand this mystery.
Paul wrote that letter about the year 56 AD to Corinthian Christians who had questions about the resurrection of Jesus. Their precise difficulty seems to be that they saw only the soul surviving death and not the body, a common conception of the Greek mindset of the day. That belief brought a low appreciation of the body and the place of creation itself in the mystery of redemption. The created world wasn’t worth much and was passing away, so let it go.
Paul countered that opinion with the belief he received, a belief from the beginning: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15: 3-6).
Jesus was raised bodily from the dead, Paul affirms, and we will rise bodily too. Jesus is “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Mary’s bodily assumption follows the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Because of her unique role in the mystery of redemption she is among the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Her assumption is part of the mystery of the resurrection; it’s an affirmation we will follow Jesus who rose body and soul.
In her prayer, the Magnificat – the gospel read on the Feast of the Assumption – Mary accepts her mission from God to share in the mission of her Son, the Word made flesh, who came to redeem the world.
The church gradually understood the mystery of Mary’s Assumption over time. A rising Gnosticism in the 3rd and 4th centuries certainly promoted appreciation of this mystery. Gnosticism promised escape from the limits of bodily life through a higher knowledge. As a result, human life and creation itself didn’t matter.
Mary’s Assumption claims they do.
The Roman Catholic Church formally defined the dogma of the Assumption on November 1, 1959, on the Feast of All Saints, but the belief was firmly held for centuries before:
“…the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.” The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians: ‘In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death'” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 966).
Mary’s Assumption was defined in a century when human life and the planet itself were threatened. World War I ended in 1918 after four years when millions perished. World War II, ending in 1945, left the real possibility that war and nuclear weapons could bring about the destruction of the human race. The Holocaust seemed to prove the capability of human evil.
Threats to human life continue and creation itself is increasingly endangered by climate change and consequent poverty. August 15, the date for the celebration of this feast from earliest times, is the time of harvest for most of the Western Hemisphere. Our belief in the resurrection of the body sees creation itself promised a share in this mystery. The readings and prayers of the feast describe Mary in heaven as the woman clothed with the sun, the moon and the stars beneath her feet. (Revelation 11)
The Feast of Mary’s Assumption is the oldest and most important of Mary’s feasts in our church calendar.
