Tuesday, 22 July 2014 Saint Mary Magdalene - Memorial

Picture from: The Cathedral of the Madeleine • 331 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT -    

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Mary Magdalene 1943  July 22  HE AND i Gabrielle Bossis

July 22 - "Lord, I should so much like to take Mary Magdalene's place on earth, because I knowhow sweet her love was for you." 

 ...>>

 "Offer it to Me, Mary Magdalene's love. It is yours by the communion of saints, for all time is present to Me. You find it difficult to believe in this treasure that your God devised for you. But just lay hold of it in all its magnificence, even though it is beyond your understanding. Above all, believe it. All that I have thought out for My children is for their good, not for Mine. Humble yourself in faith and love as Mary Magdalene did. Tell Me often in secret of all the ways in which you have grieved My heart. Be deeply sorry. You know how My heart listens. And if your heart is moved as you confess, what do you think Mine must feel?

Oh, My child, may love lift you above your usual ways. Like Mary Magdalene, learn to be a new woman, even to giving up your all. (...)

The sacrifice most pleasing to God is a cleft and contrite heart. What deeper pain could you have than to have little love? So take all the love of the saints and give it to Me as though for the first time. Ask Mary Magdalene to help you  -  she who loved so much." (...)

My yoke is easy Mat 11:28-30

 Church of Perpetual Succour, Glenfin, Co. Donegal

 Community Mass;

Into. by Fr. Nivard

Fw: My yoke is easy

                         

On Thursday, 17 July 2014, 

Fr. Nivard ... wrote:

www.dailyscripture.net, adapted Copyright © 2014 Servants of the Word

15 Thur July 5 2014: Mat 11:28-30

My joke is easy and burden light

   Doing the works which Jesus did.   

   The Jews used the image of a yoke to express submission to God.

   They spoke of the yoke of the yoke of the commandments, the yoke of the yoke of God.

   Jesus says his yoke is "easy". The Greek word for "easy" can also mean "well-fitting".

   Yokes were tailor-made to fit the oxen well. Oxen were yoked two by two. Jesus invites us to be yoked with him, to unite our life with his life, our will with his will, and our heart with his heart.

   At primary school the young teachers would, on occasion, ask the boys to name their favourite girl in the class and then the girls would name their favourite boy. I would always choose my partner but quite often another boy would get there first. One day my aunt took my brother and sisters to watch 'Snow-white and the Seven Dwarfs'. My aunt looked behind and saw me and my partner marching along with arms linked. Alas, she sent the poor girl packing! 

   To be yoked with Jesus is to be united with him in a relationship of love, trust, and obedience .

     

Father, inflame our hearts with love for you and for your ways. Help us to exchange the yoke of rebellion for the yoke of continual union with your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Fr. Nivard, 3 months at the Church of Perpetual Succour, Glenfin. Nivard 1952 entered Cistercian monks at Mount St. Bernard.

Glenfin Church South Face - Pugin style, similar to the MSB Abbey Church 

+ + +

Job words; "... how much fecundity there is in allegory, and how the sweetness of fruit to the taste can be anticipated from the allurement of fragrant leaves. (Gregory the Great)

15^th Week Ord. Friday Year II

Night Office - Patristic Reading, 

First Reading     Job 6:1-30

Responsory      Eph 4:15; Pro 4:18

Let us speak the truth in love + so that in all things we may grow into Christ who is our head.

V. The path of the just is like the passage of the dawn; it grows from first light to the full splendor of day.+ So that in ...

Second Reading

From the writings of Saint Gregory the Great (Moralia in Job XXllI, 2: PL 76, 251)

The allurement of fragrant leaves

It is because the ancient Fathers resemble trees bearing abundant fruit, being not merely attractive figures in themselves but productive also of positive results, that their lives are so well worth considering. For in so doing, we realize, as we wonder at the freshness and originality of people in history, how much fecundity there is in allegory, and how the sweetness of fruit to the taste can be anticipated from the allurement of fragrant leaves. No one has ever had the grace of supernatural adoption except through his acknowledgment of the Only-begotten. And so it is fitting that he who enlightens men and women that they may merit to shine forth should himself be manifest in their lives and their words. For when a lantern is lit in the darkness it is the, lantern itself which is seen before all the rest, everything else that it lights up. Hence if we really wish to discern what has been made visible, we must try to open the eyes of our minds to the light itself. This lesson shines through the speeches of the blessed Job, like a fleeting twinkle, even when those involved allegories are edited out and forgotten, and the shadows of the darkest hours of night are as it were removed. For he says: I know that my Redeemer lives, and in my flesh I shall see God.

Indeed Saint Paul had found this same light in the night of history, when he said: All were baptized in the power of Moses, in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink. But they drank of the spiritual rock which lay in their path: and the rock was Christ. If, then, the rock was a type or figure of the Redeemer, why should not the blessed Job apply and use a figure of him whom he foretold and marked, indeed identified, with suffering? Wherefore Job is not without reason said to be grieving precisely because he bears in himself the like­ness of him whom Isaiah had long ago announced as taking our sorrows on himself. Moreover our Redeemer showed himself to be one and the same person identified with his Holy Church which he took up and manifested. For of him it is said: He is the head, Christ himself. And again, of his Church it is written: And the body of Christ, which is the Church. Hence the blessed Job, who pre­sented the type and bore the mark of the Mediator all the more faithfully for having prefigured his passion not merely in speech but even in suffering, since in his words and deeds he finds support in the idea of a redeemer, has lighted in a flash on the very significance of the body itself. Believing Christ and his Church to be one person, let us view it in the light of one person and every­thing he does, the body and its every act.

Responsory     Ps 5:7; Is 6:3

Through the greatness of your love I have access to your house. + I bow down before your holy temple, filled with awe.

V. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. + I bow down ...

Wendy Becket 'mea cupla' to write about Icons, 'Divine beauty'

The Word magazine of Divine Word Missionaries

Jan 2005 Vol 54 No 1

 

When you buy this book, as I hope you will, you will find a Foreword which I have writ­ten. In it I express my gratitude to the author, Richard Temple, for alerting me to the power and beauty of icons and for this majestic book which enables all of us to understand them better. I hope nobody will consider this a conflict of interests. It is, rather, my attempt to waken us Westerners, for whom the icon is an untraditional form of art, to what we have been missing.

 

 The icon is woefully underestimated by those who write about art. (Mea culpa!) It is both too prayerful to fit neatly into any art categories, and too artistic to loom large in books of spirituality. This may be changing. Rowan Williams, the charismatic Archbishop of Canterbury, has recently written two small books that use icons, in the first one of Our Lady, in the second one of Our Lord, to make profound and practical theological statements. What these small books insist upon is that the icon is a valid way into prayer, a means of surrendering ourselves to God, a sacramental.

 

Richard Temple, though more obliquely, says much the same. His text, unemotional and dignified, makes it radiantly clear that icons are not only beautiful but divinely beautiful. They have a purpose, they exist only to draw us closer to God and affect us with the pure power of holy grace. It is obvious that we are far away from curatorial expertise and questions of attribution. Yet these questions are not wholly alien.

Icons - this is their lovely paradox - are genuine works of art, and all scholastic norms apply. But that is their minimal level of existence. At their heart they are works of ardent faith, and their whole significance is spiritual.

The artist, in this unique case, does not set out to 'make a work of art': that will happen as a happy side effect. The artist sets out to create a human artifact that will unite the viewer with Our Lord. He or she prepares by prayer and fasting. The painter's soul must be pure, quiet and silent before God so as to convey an image of His Mystery. All movements of the ego are abjured. As Temple says: "In accordance with the icon tradition, the painter works strictly within a set of established rules. He invents nothing from his subjective imagination. He is not more free to introduce novelties than the priest celebrating the liturgy. Like the priest, he regards himself as the channel through which the unchanging tradition passes." One need only imagine Giotto or Michelangelo or Rembrandt faced with such constrictions to realise how totally different is the art of the icon painters origin.

Temple explains its development, its modifications - slight under various cultures - its central themes. But the overpowering importance of this book lies in its illustrations. I always distrust generalisations about art that are not very closely linked to illustrations. Here is the book's special triumph. All that Temple avers, he proves, by showing us, in glorious re­production, what he is talking about. Since he runs one of the world's great icon galleries, he has been able to take many examples from

his own stock, either present or past.

When we look, and continue to look, at these pictures, the meaning of the subtitle, Divine Beauty, becomes clear. I say 'continue to look', because the icon is not meant for the casual gaze. Eve r y icon is painted to be an object of prayer. Of course, we do not pray to the icon but through it. It is a gateway, a meeting place where the mystery of God and the eagerness of the believing heart meet. Here God blesses us, here we accept that blessing, here allow it to change us. It seems almost a vulgarity to say more. Read the book and give thanks, as I did.   

Saint Bonventure

Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

 SECOND READING

From The Journey of the Mind to God, by Saint Bonventure, bishop
(Cap. 7,1.2.4.6: Opera omnia 5, 312-313)

Mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit

Christ is both the way and the door. Christ is the staircase and the vehicle, like the throne of mercy over the Ark of the Covenant, and the mystery hidden from the ages. A man should turn his full attention to this throne of mercy, and should gaze at him hanging on the cross, full of faith, hope and charity, devoted, full of wonder and joy, marked by gratitude, and open to praise and jubilation. Then such a man will make with Christ a pasch, that is, a passing-over. Through the branches of the cross he will pass over the Red Sea, leaving Egypt and entering the desert. There he will taste the hidden manna, and rest with Christ in the sepulchre, as if he were dead to things outside. He will experience, as much as is possible for one who is still living, what was promised to the thief who hung beside Christ: Today you will be with me in paradise.

For this passover to be perfect, we must suspend all the operations of the mind and we must transform the peak of our affections, directing them to God alone. This is a sacred mystical experience. It cannot be comprehended by anyone unless he surrenders himself to it; nor can he surrender himself to it unless he longs for it; nor can he long for it unless the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent into the world, should come and inflame his innermost soul. Hence the Apostle says that this mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit.

If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervor and glowing love. The fire is God, and the furnace is in Jerusalem, fired by Christ in the ardor of his loving passion. Only he understood this who said: My soul chose hanging and my bones death. Anyone who cherishes this kind of death can see God, for it is certainly true that: No man can look upon me and live.

Let us die, then, and enter into the darkness, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over with the crucified Christ from this world to the Father so that, when the Father has shown himself to us, we can say with Philip: It is enough. We may hear with Paul: My grace is sufficient for you; and we can rejoice with David, saying: My flesh and my heart fail me, but God is the strength of my heart and my heritage for ever. Blessed be the Lord for ever, and let all the people say: Amen. Amen!

RESPONSORY
1 John 3:24; Sirach 1:8,9

All who keep God’s commandments live in God
and God lives in them.
– We know that he dwells in us,
by the Spirit he has given us.

In his Holy Spirit God created wisdom,
which he has poured forth upon all creation
and has offered to those who love him.
– We know that he dwells in us,
by the Spirit he has given us.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

All-powerful Father,
may we who celebrate the feast of Saint Bonventure
always benefit from his wisdom
and follow the example of his love.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Parable of the Sower, Matthew 13:1-23 Homily

Comment: Mass  Homily, Fr. Aelred

13/07/2014

15th Sunday (A)

          Matthew 13:1-23.

Homily; Fr. Aelred

15^th Sunday (A)) 2014

1. The Parable of the Sower, from today’s Gospel, is very well known to us. Matthew, Mark and Luke all record it. It is well adapted to Jesus’ original audience, which must have included many Galilean famers. Yet its meaning or interpretation isn’t immediately obvious to us. Indeed all Jesus’ parables are somewhat mysterious. They need some quirt thought to unravel them.

2. All the seed of the sower is good and lavishly sown. But the first three sowings are lost, only the seed sown in rich soil produces a harvest. The parable can be understood as Jesus retelling the story of Isreael. The first three sowings consists of the word of God as it comes to Israel through the Prophets. But the prophetic word was not obeyed and the harvest was lost. Now Jesus comes preaching the kingdom of God as the climax of Israel’s history, and there is the fresh chance that it will be receive in the soil of people’s hearts.

3. Another way of understanding the parable is to see Jesus confronting the mystery of the rejection and acceptance of his preaching Jesuas had been sent from God to the Jewish people, the people of Election, but many of them rejected him. Only the relatively small number of his People accepts him. This would become an acute problem in the early Church: why did the Jewish reject the Messiah? St. Paul would agonize over this in his letter to the Romans.

4. A third way of looking at the parable is to see it as the various responses to the words of Jesus among Christians themselves. How the words of Jesus can be lost through the action of the evil one, through personal shallowness, through worldly concerns and the desire for wealth

5. Why some people persevere in the faith and same do not can ultimately only known by God. But a passage in John’s Gospel can shed some light on it. John is the only Evangelist who does not record the Parable of the Sower, but he does give us these words of Jesus spoken shortly before in his Passion: “Unless a wheat grain falls into the earth dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it does it yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life loses it: anyone who hates life in his world will keep it for eternal life”. Jesus is here enunciating an important principle of the spiritual life: only to the degree that we can give up our own preferences, our own way of doing things, and surrender to God’s inscrutable will can we yield a hasrvest for eternal life, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

MT. 10: 32 So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

Father in heavn 

cares for you.  

Matthew, by Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787)

Mt. 10:24-33

Saturday, 12 July 2014

Saturday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time   Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10:24-33.

Jesus said to his Apostles: “No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master.
It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household!
Therefore do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. 
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. 
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. 
Even all the hairs of your head are counted. 
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father." 

Commentary of the day : 
Thomas of Celano (c.1190-c.1260), biographer of Saint Francis and Saint Clare 
The First Life of Saint Francis, §58 (trans. Franciscan Institute of St Bonaventure University, alt.) 
"Not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge... So do not be afraid"

Having come to a place very near to where there was a large flock of birds, blessed Francis noticed that they were waiting for him. He gave them his usual greeting and, as the birds did not take to flight as was their custom, told them they were to listen to the word of God and humbly begged them to listen carefully. 

Amongst other things, he said to them: “My brother birds, you should greatly praise your Creator and love him always. He clothed you with feathers and gave you wings for flying and everything you need to live on. Among all God’s creatures you have the most grace. He gave you the freedom of the air and its purity. You neither sow nor reap. He nevertheless gives you food and shelter without your least care” (Mt 6,26). At these words, as both the saint and his companions testified, the birds expressed their joy a great deal in their own way. They stretched their necks, spread their wings, opened their beaks and looked at him attentively. He went to them, going to and fro among them, touching their heads and their bodies with his tunic. They did not leave the place until, having made the sign of the cross, he blessed them and gave them permission. Then he went on his way with his companions and, rejoicing, gave thanks to God who is thus acknowledged and venerated by all his creatures. 

Francis was not simple minded, but he had the grace of simplicity and thus began to accuse himself of negligence because he had not preached to the birds before, seeing that these creatures listened so respectfully to the word of God. From that day on, he carefully exhorted birds, beasts, and even inanimate creatures to praise and love the Creator. 

St Benedict's Vision of the Universe (Glasgow University)

COMMENT: following St. Benedict, Solemnity

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW LIBRARY
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT

Book of the Month

See previous books of the month

Perhaps the most striking illustration is that which couples the rapturous visions of God that were experienced separately by Saint Benedict and Saint Paul through contemplation. A blazing light appeared to Benedict while he was in prayer, in the splendour of which he saw the soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua, being carried to heaven by angels. Paul is said to have experienced a similar blinding revelation. According to Sandler, the two visions are brought together here as meditative models to bring the reader closer to God.Divided into three compartments, the giant face of God - surrounded by flames and radiant streams of light - is at the top. In the background are four angels, one holding up the naked soul of a mitred Bishop Germanus. In the middle - positioned between heaven and earth - are Benedict and Paul. Benedict holds a crozier in his left hand, gazing upwards as he kneels and points with his right forefinger to the diagram of the Universe below. Paul kneels in adoration behind a huge sword, point downwards. In the lower compartment, Roger and another figure (possibly Roger again), are shown praying on either side of a diagram of the twelve spheres. The two speech scrolls read: "All creating I beg, as I hope, have mercy on Roger" and "May all things created by God be my medicine". The figure of God found here is a possible model for a similar miniature found in the Omne Bonum manuscript (BL Royal 6 E VI-VII), a fourteenth century encyclopaedia of universal knowledge.

full page miniatures accompanying St Benedict's Vision of the Universe (page 85)

detail of lower compartment of full page miniature from St Benedict's Vision of the Universe depicting the spheres (page 85)

  http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/june2008.html

St Benedict, Patron of Cenobites

Solemnity July 11

St Benedict, Patron of Cenobites  

Nunraw Abbey Office

 Vespers II, Cant 2, v. T. Apoc. 4&5

“God had bestowed on him such gifts of grace 

that he saw all the world, 

and all it held; flash of the light, 

showed him all creation”.

See  http://www.osb.org/gen/benedict.html 

Benedict Vision

Gregory presents Benedict as the model of a saint who flees temptation to pursue a life of attention to God. Through a balanced pattern of living and praying Benedict reached the point where he glimpsed the glory of God. Gregory recounts a vision that Benedict received toward the end of his life: In the dead of night he suddenly beheld a flood of light shining down from above more brilliant than the sun, and with it every trace of darkness cleared away. According to his own description, the whole world was gathered up before his eyes "in what appeared to be a single ray of light" (ch. 34). St. Benedict, the monk par excellence, led a monastic life that reached the vision of God.

From The Modern Catholic Encyclopedia (A Michael Glazier Book), Liturgical Press (1995) 78-79.

Mat 9:14-17 Freely have you received - freely give.

Thursday, 10 July 2014

Thursday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time

 Mass Introduction: Fr. Nivard

Fw: Freely Give                         

 http://www.nunraw.com.uk (Website)    

Blogspot :http://www.nunraw.blogspot.co.uk |

domdonald.org.uk 

On Thursday, 10 July 2014, 

Fr. Nivard ...wrote:

www.dailyscripture.net.  

Servants of the Word

13 Sat July 5: Mat 9:14-17

Freely have you received - freely give.

     

   Jesus also commissioned his disciples to carry on the works which he did - bringing the healing power and mercy of God to the weary and oppressed.   

   The Gospel has power to set people free from sin, sickness, fear, and oppression.

   The Lord Jesus will free us from anything that keeps us from loving him and our neighbour with joy and confidence.

   A charismatic song had a catchy line – Freely, freely, freely give. If you do so you will surely free-wheel, not through the Eifel Tower, but through the Golden Gate of Paradise.

 

   Father, may the joy and truth of the Gospel transform our lives. May we witness it to those around us, through Christ our Lord.

Ps. This evening: Healing Session before the Blessed Sacrament Exposed.

What is meditating on Christ. Night Office. Bl. Newman P&P Sermons

COMMENT:

Fr. G. Mulligan
CSsR, Kinnoull

 


In this week, the community has the Annual Retreat.
See the pictures of the Retreatant Conductor
and flowers for the Retreat.
Our Night Office today was about 'meditating on Christ' (Newman).
The conferences by Fr. Gerry are already deep into reflection in the themes.

14^th Week Ord Time Yr. II

Monday  7 July 2014

Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 6
John Henry Newman

4.	Christ's Privations a Meditation for Christians

  http://www.newmanreader.org/Works/parochial/volume6/sermon4.html  

What is meditating on Christ?

This, alas! cannot be denied. Yet,

If it be so, that the Son of God came down from heaven, put aside His glory, and submitted to be despised, cruelly treated, and put to death by His own creatures,—by those whom He had made, and whom He had preserved up to that day, and was then upholding in life and being,—is it reasonable that so great an event should not move us? 

Does it not stand to reason that we must be in a very irreligious state of mind, unless we have some little gratitude, some little sympathy, some little love, some little awe, some little self-reproach, some little self-abasement, some little repentance, some little desire of amendment, in consequence of what He has done and suffered for us? 

Or, rather, may not so great a Benefactor demand of us some overflowing gratitude, keen sympathy, fervent love, profound awe, bitter self-reproach, earnest repentance, eager desire and longing after a new heart? Who can deny all this? Why then, O my brethren is it not so? why are things with us {41} as they are? Alas! I sorrowfully foretell that time will go on, and Passion-tide, Good Friday, and Easter-Day will pass by, and the weeks after it, and many of you will be just what you were—not at all nearer heaven, not at all nearer Christ in your hearts and lives, not impressed lastingly or savingly with the thought of His mercies and your own sins and demerits.

But why is this? why do you so little understand the Gospel of your salvation? why are your eyes so dim, and your ears so hard of hearing? why have you so little faith? so little of heaven in your hearts? For this one reason, my brethren, if I must express my meaning in one word, because you so little meditate. You do not meditate, and therefore you are not impressed.

What is meditating on Christ? it is simply this, thinking habitually and constantly of Him and of His deeds and sufferings. It is to have Him before our minds as One whom we may contemplate, worship, and address when we rise up, when we lie down, when we eat and drink, when we are at home and abroad, when we are working, or walking, or at rest, when we are alone, and again when we are in company; this is meditating. And by this, and nothing short of this, will our hearts come to feel as they ought. We have stony hearts, hearts as hard as the highways; the history of Christ makes no impression on them. And yet, if we would be saved, we must have tender, sensitive, living hearts; our hearts must be broken, must be broken up like ground, and dug, and watered, and tended, and cultivated, till they become as gardens, gardens of Eden, acceptable to our God, gardens in which the Lord God {42} may walk and dwell; filled, not with briars and thorns, but with all sweet-smelling and useful plants, with heavenly trees and flowers. The dry and barren waste must burst forth into springs of living water. This change must take place in our hearts if we would be saved; in a word, we must have what we have not by nature, faith and love; and how is this to be effected, under God's grace, but by godly and practical meditation through the day?

St. Peter describes what I mean, when he says, speaking of Christ, "Whom having not seen ye love: in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." [1 Pet. i. 8]

Christ is gone away; He is not seen; we never saw Him, we only read and hear of Him. It is an old saying, "Out of sight, out of mind." Be sure, so it will be, so it must be with us, as regards our blessed Saviour, unless we make continual efforts all through the day to think of Him, His love, His precepts, His gifts, and His promises. We must recall to mind what we read in the Gospels and in holy books about Him; we must bring before us what we have heard in Church; we must pray God to enable us to do so, to bless the doing so, and to make us do so in a simple-minded, sincere, and reverential spirit. In a word, we must meditate, for all this is meditation; and this even the most unlearned person can do, and will do, if he has a will to do it.