May of Mary. Gospel Fifth Sunday of the Easter B - May 3, 2015

Our Lady of Month of May; Remember,

China,  "Our Lady of Sheshan".

Sunday Gospel Reflection With Fr. Bill Grimm 2015.05.03   

  

Published on 27 Apr 2015

In the Acts of the Apostles, Saul shows what love calls for. He continues to proclaim the fact that he has met the Lord though no one trusts him and some even want to kill him. That is the basic vocation to which all followers of Jesus are called.

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OUR LADY OF SHESHAN PRAYER

FOR THE CHURCH IN CHINA –

Shanghai Basilica of Mary

 Our Lady of Sheshan  

1.         
Jiangsu Province, the
Shrine of Our Lady of...

campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/.../China-OL-SheShan.htmlCached

... Our Lady of Sheshan  was
proclaimed the patron ... The Image of Our Lady of She
... to bring our testimony of love in connection with this chosen
corner ...

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The Shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan

Location:    Shanghai_-_Basilique_de_She_Shan_Our Lady of Sheshan     Sheshan Basilica of Mary, Help of Christians is located on the peak of Sheshan in Songjiang district in Shanghai. It is One of the most prominent pilgrimage shrines in China, it is well-known both far and wide in China and overseas. History The Catholic faith was introduced in the Songjiang district for a long time. For more than one-hundred years, when the Catholic religion was banned, Catholics had been practicing their faith underground. In 1844, a Jesuit priest Fr. Claude Gotteland, SJ, came to Sheshan and was very much impressed by the serenity and beauty of the area. He decided to build a house of prayer for the retired priests. However, he died in 1856 before his dream was realized. In 1863, his successor, Fr. Joseph Gonnet, SJ came to Sheshan. He purchased the whole hill top as well as the southern slope and began to build religious houses with a chapel half way on the slope for convalescence of missionaries. The following year, Fr. Desjacques Marin built a hexagonal pavilion for the statue of our Lady. On Mar 1 1868, Bishop Msgr. Adrien Languillat, SJ consecrated the chapel and blessed the portrait of Our Lady, Help of Christians, which was copied from Our Lady of Victory, in Paris On the feast day of Our Lady, Help of Christians, hundreds of pilgrims came and participated outside the chapel where Mass was held in a tent. During the Taiping Uprising, the Catholic Church was being attacked. In Shanghai, there were many incidents of prejudice and unrest. The Jesuit Superior Fr. A. Della Corte, SJ climbed up the mountain of Sheshan. He went in front of the statue of Our Lady and made a vow that if the area was spared in this turmoil and danger, he would build a church on the location. The prayer was heard and the diocese stood unharmed. In September 1870, he appealed to the generous Catholics to fulfill his vow and to thank our Lady for her protection. Easter Daffodils, Nunraw Benedict XVI Prayers PRAYER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO OUR LADY OF SHESHAN ON THE OCCASION OF THE WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE CHURCH IN CHINA (24 MAY 2008) Virgin Most Holy, Mother of the Incarnate Word and our Mother, venerated in the Shrine of Sheshan under the title "Help of Christians", the entire Church in China looks to you with devout affection. We come before you today to implore your protection. Look upon the People of God and, with a mother’s care, guide them along the paths of truth and love, so that they may always be a leaven of harmonious coexistence among all citizens. When you obediently said "yes" in the house of Nazareth, you allowed God’s eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption. You willingly and generously cooperated in that work, allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul, until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary, standing beside your Son, who died that we might live. From that moment, you became, in a new way, the Mother of all those who receive your Son Jesus in faith and choose to follow in his footsteps by taking up his Cross. Mother of hope, in the darkness of Holy Saturday you journeyed with unfailing trust towards the dawn of Easter. Grant that your children may discern at all times, even those that are darkest, the signs of God’s loving presence. Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China, who, amid their daily trials, continue to believe, to hope, to love. May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world, and of the world to Jesus. In the statue overlooking the Shrine you lift your Son on high, offering him to the world with open arms in a gesture of love. Help Catholics always to be credible witnesses to this love, ever clinging to the rock of Peter on which the Church is built. Mother of China and all Asia, pray for us, now and for ever. Amen!

Jiangsu Province, the Shrine of Our
Lady of.

      

Saint Athanasius 2 May 2015 Introduction by C. S. Lewis

Patristic Lectionary,

COMMENT: Introduction   by C. S. Lewis  

Breviary

Saturday, 2 May 2015

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Type: Weekday - Time: Easter

Office of Readings

SECOND READING

From a discourse by Saint Athanasius, bishop
(Oratio de Incarnatione Verbi, 8-9, PG 25, 110-111)

On the incarnation of the Word

The Word of God, incorporeal, incorruptible and immaterial, entered our world. Yet it was not as if he had been remote from it up to that time. For there is no part of the world that was ever without his presence; together with his Father, he continually filled all things and places.

Out of his loving-kindness for us he came to us, and we see this in the way he revealed himself openly to us. Taking pity on mankind’s weakness, and moved by our corruption, he could not stand aside and see death have the mastery over us; he did not want creation to perish and his Father’s work in fashioning man to be in vain. He therefore took to himself a body, no different from our own, for he did not wish simply to be in a body or only to be seen.

If he had wanted simply to be seen, he could indeed have taken another, and nobler, body. Instead, he took our body in its reality.

Within the Virgin he built himself a temple, that is, a body; he made it his own instrument in which to dwell and to reveal himself. In this way he received from mankind a body like our own, and, since all were subject to the corruption of death, he delivered this body over to death for all, and with supreme love offered it to the Father. He did so to destroy the law of corruption passed against all men, since all died in him. The law, which had spent its force on the body of the Lord, could no longer have any power over his fellowmen. Moreover, this was the way in which the Word was to restore mankind to immortality, after it had fallen into corruption, and summon it back from death to life. He utterly destroyed the power death had against mankind—as fire consumes chaff—by means of the body he had taken and the grace of the resurrection.

This is the reason why the Word assumed a body that could die, so that this body, sharing in the Word who is above all, might satisfy death’s requirement in place of all. Because of the Word dwelling in that body, it would remain incorruptible, and all would be freed for ever from corruption by the grace of the resurrection.

In death the Word made a spotless sacrifice and oblation of the body he had taken. By dying for others, he immediately banished death for all mankind.

In this way the Word of God, who is above all, dedicated and offered his temple, the instrument that was his body, for us all, as he said, and so paid by his own death the debt that was owed. The immortal Son of God, united with all men by likeness of nature, thus fulfilled all justice in restoring mankind to immortality by the promise of the resurrection.

The corruption of death no longer holds any power over mankind, thanks to the Word, who has come to dwell among them through his one body.

Athanasius: On the Incarnation
De Incarnatione Verbi Dei
This translation was made by Sister Penelope Lawson, of the Anglican Community of St. Mary the Virgin in Wantage, England. It was originally published with a byline that reads only "Translated and edited by A Religious of C.S.M.V."
With Introduction by C. S. Lewis

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Athanasius stood contra mundum ("against the world") in defense of the biblical doctrine of Christ. He opposed Arius when it seemed all the world would follow Arius's heresy. Athanasius's work remains even today one of the definitive statements of orthodox Trinitarianism.

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Introduction

by C. S. Lewis here is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about "isms" and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.
This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.
Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o'clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why—the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity ("mere Christianity" as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?"—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.
I myself was first led into reading the Christian classics, almost accidentally, as a result of my English studies. Some, such as Hooker, Herbert, Traherne, Taylor and Bunyan, I read because they are themselves great English writers; others, such as Boethius, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Dante, because they were "influences." George Macdonald I had found for myself at the age of sixteen and never wavered in my allegiance, though I tried for a long time to ignore his Christianity. They are, you will note, a mixed bag, representative of many Churches, climates and ages. And that brings me to yet another reason for reading them. The divisions of Christendom are undeniable and are by some of these writers most fiercely expressed. But if any man is tempted to think—as one might be tempted who read only con- temporaries—that "Christianity" is a word of so many meanings that it means nothing at all, he can learn beyond all doubt, by stepping out of his own century, that this is not so. Measured against the ages "mere Christianity" turns out to be no insipid interdenominational transparency, but something positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible. I know it, indeed, to my cost. In the days when I still hated Christianity, I learned to recognise, like some all too familiar smell, that almost unvarying something which met me, now in Puritan Bunyan, now in Anglican Hooker, now in Thomist Dante. It was there (honeyed and floral) in Francois de Sales; it was there (grave and homely) in Spenser and Walton; it was there (grim but manful) in Pascal and Johnson; there again, with a mild, frightening, Paradisial flavour, in Vaughan and Boehme and Traherne. In the urban sobriety of the eighteenth century one was not safe—Law and Butler were two lions in the path. The supposed "Paganism" of the Elizabethans could not keep it out; it lay in wait where a man might have supposed himself safest, in the very centre of The Faerie Queene and the Arcadia. It was, of course, varied; and yet—after all—so unmistakably the same; recognisable, not to be evaded, the odour which is death to us until we allow it to become life:

an air that kills
From yon far country blows.
We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity. I know, for I saw it; and well our enemies know it. That unity any of us can find by going out of his own age. It is not enough, but it is more than you had thought till then. Once you are well soaked in it, if you then venture to speak, you will have an amusing experience. You will be thought a Papist when you are actually reproducing Bunyan, a Pantheist when you are quoting Aquinas, and so forth. For you have now got on to the great level viaduct which crosses the ages and which looks so high from the valleys, so low from the mountains, so narrow compared with the swamps, and so broad compared with the sheep-tracks.
The present book is something of an experiment. The translation is intended for the world at large, not only for theological students. If it succeeds, other translations of other great Christian books will presumably follow. In one sense, of course, it is not the first in the field. Translations of the Theologia Germanica, the Imitation, the Scale of Perfection, and the Revelations of Lady Julian of Norwich, are already on the market, and are very valuable, though some of them are not very scholarly. But it will be noticed that these are all books of devotion rather than of doctrine. Now the layman or amateur needs to be instructed as well as to be exhorted. In this age his need for knowledge is particularly pressing. Nor would I admit any sharp division between the two kinds of book. For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.
This is a good translation of a very great book. St. Athanasius has suffered in popular estimation from a certain sentence in the "Athanasian Creed." I will not labour the point that that work is not exactly a creed and was not by St. Athanasius, for I think it is a very fine piece of writing. The words "Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly" are the offence. They are commonly misunderstood. The operative word is keep; not acquire, or even believe, but keep. The author, in fact, is not talking about unbelievers, but about deserters, not about those who have never heard of Christ, nor even those who have misunderstood and refused to accept Him, but of those who having really understood and really believed, then allow themselves, under the sway of sloth or of fashion or any other invited confusion to be drawn away into sub-Christian modes of thought. They are a warning against the curious modern assumption that all changes of belief, however brought about, are necessarily exempt from blame. But this is not my immediate concern. I mention "the creed (commonly called) of St. Athanasius" only to get out of the reader's way what may have been a bogey and to put the true Athanasius in its place. His epitaph is Athanasius contra mundum, "Athanasius against the world." We are proud that our own country has more than once stood against the world. Athanasius did the same. He stood for the Trinitarian doctrine, "whole and undefiled," when it looked as if all the civilised world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius—into one of those "sensible" synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended today and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated clergymen. It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.
When I first opened his De Incarnatione I soon discovered by a very simple test that I was reading a masterpiece. I knew very little Christian Greek except that of the New Testament and I had expected difficulties. To my astonishment I found it almost as easy as Xenophon; and only a master mind could, in the fourth century, have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity. Every page I read confirmed this impression. His approach to the Miracles is badly needed today, for it is the final answer to those who object to them as "arbitrary and meaningless violations of the laws of Nature." They are here shown to be rather the re-telling in capital letters of the same message which Nature writes in her crabbed cursive hand; the very operations one would expect of Him who was so full of life that when He wished to die He had to "borrow death from others." The whole book, indeed, is a picture of the Tree of Life—a sappy and golden book, full of buoyancy and confidence. We cannot, I admit, appropriate all its confidence today. We cannot point to the high virtue of Christian living and the gay, almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom, as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance which Athanasius takes as a matter of course. But whoever may be to blame for that it is not Athanasius.
The translator knows so much more Christian Greek than I that it would be out of place for me to praise her version. But it seems to me to be in the right tradition of English translation. I do not think the reader will find here any of that sawdusty quality which is so common in modern renderings from the ancient languages. That is as much as the English reader will notice; those who compare the version with the original will be able to estimate how much wit and talent is presupposed in such a choice, for example, as "these wiseacres" on the very first page.
C. S. LEWIS.

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Baldwin Cistercian COMMENT from William

Canterbury_Cathedral_Cloisters,_Kent,_UK

   

FOURTH WEEK OF EASTER

THURSDAY  Year I

30 April 2015

Second Reading

From a treatise by Baldwin of Canterbury (Tract.4: PL 204, 429-431.441-442)

The two resurrections

Our Lord's glorious resurrection teaches us that the fruits of obedience are resurrection and life. These were the fruit of the obedience practiced by Christ who is the resurrection and the life personified.

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: William J .....
To: Donald ...... 
Sent: Thursday, 30 April 2015, 17:05
Subject: Re: Baldwin Cistercian 

Dear Father Donald,

Your comment:

Two Resurrections... needs some enlightenment of Baldwin's explanation.

Please may I respond, for the extract fascinates me...

The burden of a twofold mortality [one, by virtue of being a descendant of Adam, the second, of our having fallen of ourselves]

... a single resurrection is not enough to bring us to the blessed life of heaven. We need two.

It is by our faith in and our sacramental imitation of the resurrection of Christ [our earthly ‘conversio’], the resurrection of our soul, through which we are now dead to sin and live for holiness, walking in newness of life... glorying in nothing other than in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...

As we wait for that redemption of our bodies, at last fully realizing our adoption as God's children, that will take place at the second resurrection [heavenly resurrection], when Christ will refashion these wretched bodies of ours and make them like his own glorious body... that endures for all eternity, a glory that knows no end...

Might that be summed up: [1] if our desire for God is faithfully lived and by heart ‘raised up’, [2] it will lead by God’s grace to the heavenly fulfilment of our desire to see His Face and to be embraced in His Love...

In these thoughts my mind has been enraptured by the passage from Luisa Piccarreta’s ‘The Holy Mass and Bodily Resurrection’ – that text has quite absorbed me.

THANK YOU Father. May all be well with you.

With my love in Our Risen Lord,

William

Month of May 2015

Month dedicated to Mary

Easter: May 1st

Optional Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker

Month of May 2015, Pope's Intentions

May

• Universal: That, rejecting the culture of indifference, we may care for our neighbours who suffer, especially the sick and the poor.

• Evangelization: That Mary's intercession may help Christians in secularized cultures be ready to proclaim Jesus.

See MAGNIFICAT COM, with thanks,.;

Month of May

Await: Front Cover of Artwork and Commentary.

Giuseppe Magni - Adoration
+ + +    

The Year of Consecrated Life;

The Mission of the Resurrection

As we celebrate now the joys and graces of this Easter season, we are drawn into the power of the Lord’s Resurrection. We see it in the transformation of Thomas’ doubt into faith, and in the undoing of Peter’s betrayal by his confession of love. In fact, all of the Apostles are brought from their fear-filled Upper Room to the hope-filled frontiers of the world. This is the living power of the Lord’s Resurrection that remains with the Church to this day.

In Pope Saint John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata, he makes mention of the need to perceive consecrated persons in the light of the Resurrection. Because the “Paschal Mystery is the wellspring of the Church’s missionary nature” (#25), it lies at the heart of every vocation to consecrated life. No vocation is for itself alone. Even the cloistered nun and solitary hermit live their consecrated life for the good of the Church, for the conversion of the world to Christ.

“To the extent that consecrated persons live a life completely devoted to the Father (cf. Lk 2:49; Jn 4:34), held fast by Christ (cf. Jn 15:16; Gal 1:15-16), and animated by the Spirit (cf. Lk 24:49; Acts 1:8; 2:4), they cooperate effectively in the mission of the Lord Jesus (cf. Jn 20:21) and contribute in a particularly profound way to the renewal of the world” (VC #25).

Father James M. Sullivan, o.p., serves as director of the Institute for Continuing Theological Education at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

Previous:

April Month.

The First Mass

To see our Lord Jesus Christ appear in glory, we must await the end of history, when he will come again to judge the living and the dead. This is why when he appears after Easter, in what is called his glorified body, Christ bore no aspect of the triumphant: Mary Magdalene mistook him for the gardener, and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus thought him an ordinary traveler.

But here, represented in the inn at Emmaus, Rembrandt goes further: he doesn’t fear to show us a Jesus yet too human to be the risen One, his face distraught, like a Christ still undergoing his Passion. Thus the Painter of Light illustrates the words of Blaise Pascal, for whom “Christ will be in his death throes until the end of the world.” And it is true: Christ will be in agony as long as evil abounds, and so he is at each Mass—the source and summit of Christian life—making present and active, though without bloodshed, his supreme sacrifice on the cross for the glory of God and the salvation of creation.

On the altar, the Victim is truly the same as on the cross, just as the minister who offers the sacrifice is also the same. For the priest does not consecrate in his own person, but in persona Christi: he does not say, “This is Christ’s Body,” but, “This is my Body….”

Here Rembrandt represents, as it were, the first Mass—the first time in history the reenactment of Christ’s sacrifice was celebrated by Christ himself—after, it must be stressed, a powerful Liturgy of the Word expounded along the road. At the inn of Emmaus, Rembrandt captures Jesus at the very moment he speaks the words and makes the gestures of the Institution: “On the day before he was to suffer, he took bread in his holy and venerable hands, and with eyes raised to heaven, to you, O God, his almighty Father, giving you thanks, he said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples….”

Pierre-Marie Dumont

Christ at Emmaüs (detail), Rembrandt (1606–1669), Louvre Museum, Paris, France. © Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-GP / Philippe Fuzeau.

Joseph the Worker

Friday, 01 May 2015
Community Mass

St. Joseph the Worker

Saint Joseph the Worker         Every day St. Joseph had to provide for the family's needs with hard manual work. Thus the Church rightly points to him as the patron of workers.         Today's is also a wonderful occasion to reflect on the importance of work in the life of the human person, the family and the community.         The human being is the subject and the primary agent of work, and in the light of this truth, we can clearly perceive the fundamental connection between the person, work and society. Human activity - the Second Vatican Council recalls - proceeds from the human person and is ordered to the person. According to God's design and will, it must serve the true good of humanity and allow "man as an individual and as a member of society to cultivate and carry out his integral vocation" (cf. Gaudium et spes, n. 35).         In order to fulfil this mission, a"tested spirituality of human work"must be cultivated that is firmly rooted in the "Gospel of work" and believers are called to proclaim and to witness to the Christian meaning of work in their many activities and occupations (cf.Laborem exercens, n. 26).         May St. Joseph, such a great and humble saint be an example that inspires Christian workers, who should call on him in every circumstance. Today I wish to entrust to the provident guardian of the Holy Family of Nazareth the young people who are training for their future profession, the unemployed, and those who are suffering from the hardship of the shortage of employment, families and the whole world of work, with the expectations and challenges, the problems and prospects that characterize it. (John Paul II - General audience,Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Wednesday, 19 March 2003) - Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana May 01 - Homily: St. Joseph, Prayerful Worker   franciscanfriars 9,055   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQGDJrYACMk   Published on 1 May 2014 Fr. John Joseph on the feast of St. Joseph the Worker reflects on the words of St Gertrude the Great regarding the spiritual merits to doing our work well, making work a prayer. St Joseph is our example as he labored to feed and provide for the Holy Family. Ave Maria! Mass: St. Joseph the Worker - Feast - Form: OF Readings: Thursday 2nd Week of Easter 1st: act 5:27-33 Resp: psa 34:2, 9, 17-18, 19-20 Gsp: joh 3:31-36 +++ For Audio go to http://airmaria.com?p=42474 Category People & Blogs Licence Standard YouTube Licence iBreviary For the Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker SECOND READING From the Pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et spes, nn. 33-34) The worldwide activity of man By his labor and abilities man has always striven to improve the quality of his life. Today, particularly by means of science and technology, he has extended his mastery over almost the whole of nature, and still continues to extend it. Through the development of the many means of communication among nations, the human family is coming to see itself, and establish itself, as a single worldwide community. As a result, where formerly man looked especially to supernatural forces for blessings, he now secures many of these benefits for himself, thanks to his own efforts. In the face of this vast enterprise now engaging the whole human race, men are asking themselves a series of questions. What is the meaning and value of all this activity? How should these benefits be used? Where are the efforts of individuals and communities finally leading us? The Church is the guardian of the deposit of God’s word, from which are drawn the principles of the religious and moral order. Without always having a ready answer to every question, the Church desires to integrate the light of revelation with the skilled knowledge of mankind, so that it may shine on the path which humanity has lately entered. Those who believe in God take it for granted that, taken by itself, man’s activity, both individual and collective—that great struggle in which men in the course of the ages have sought to improve the conditions of human living—is in keeping with God’s purpose. Man, created in God’s image, has been commissioned to master the earth and all it contains, and so rule the world in justice and holiness. He is to acknowledge God as the creator of all, and to see himself and the whole universe in relation to God, in order that all things may be subject to man, and God’s name be an object of wonder and praise over all the earth. This commission extends to even the most ordinary activities of everyday life. Where men and women, in the course of gaining a livelihood for themselves and their families, offer appropriate service to society, they can be confident that their personal efforts promote the work of the Creator, confer benefit on their fellowmen, and help to realize God’s plan in history. So far from thinking that the achievements gained by man’s abilities and strength are in opposition to God’s power, or that man with his intelligence is in some sense a rival to his Creator, Christians are, on the contrary, convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God’s greatness and the effect of his wonderful providence. The more the power of men increases, the wider is the scope of their responsibilities, as individuals and as communities. It is clear, then, that the Christian message does not deflect men from the building up of the world, or encourage them to neglect the good of their fellowmen, but rather places on them a stricter obligation to work for these objectives.   RESPONSORY See Genesis 2:15 The Lord God put man in the garden of Eden – to cultivate the garden and care for it, alleluia. From the beginning of time, this has been man’s lot. – To cultivate the garden and care for it, alleluia. CONCLUDING PRAYER Let us pray. God our Father, creator and ruler of the universe, in every age you call man to develop and use his gifts for the good of others. With Saint Joseph as our example and guide, help us to do the work you have asked and come to the rewards you have promised. We ask 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.

Baldwin Dom Donald's Blog: Baldwin of Ford (?-c.1190), Cistercian abbot, then...

 Night Office Readings, (Augustinian Press 2001).

COMMENT: 

Need explanation of Baldwin's explanation of "the two Resurrections"

  Statue of Baldwin of Forde from the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral 



      Dom Donald's Blog: Baldwin of Ford (?-c.1190), Cistercian abbot, then...: Statue of Baldwin of Forde from the exterior of  Canterbury Cathedral              Tuesday, 20 January 2015 Tuesday of the...  

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FOURTH WEEK OF EASTER

THURSDAY  Year I

30 April 2015

First Reading

Revelation 19:11-20:15

Responsory          1 Cor 15:25-26; see Rv 20:13-14

Christ must reign until God has put all his enemies under his feet.

+ And the last enemy to be destroyed is death, alleluia.

V. Then death and Sheol will give up their dead, and will be cast into the fiery lake. + And the last ...

Second
Reading

From a treatise by Baldwin
of Canterbury (Tract.4: PL 204, 429-431.441-442)

 

   

The two resurrections

Our Lord's glorious resurrection teaches us that the fruits of obedience are resurrection and
life. These were the fruit of the obedience practiced by Christ who is the
resurrection and the life personified.

However, Christ died only once, and rose again only
once. A single resurrection
answered to a single
death. But for us who have been dragged
down to the depths by the burden of a twofold mortality, one resurrection cannot
suffice. Because we
have fallen so low, a single resurrection is not enough to bring us to the blessed life of heaven. We need two.

Nevertheless,
the resurrection of Christ is the cause and
ex­emplar, the model and
the effective sign of both our resurrections, first and second
alike. It is by our faith in   and our
sacramental imitation of the resurrection of Christ that we are re-created,
justified, sanctified, and raised from death. This is our first resurrection,
the resurrection of our soul, through which we are now dead to sin and live for
holiness, walking in newness of life as we wait for that redemption of our
bodies, which will mean that we have at last fully realized our adoption as
God's children. That will take place at the second resurrection, when Christ
will refashion these wretched bodies of ours and make them like his own
glorious body.

Our first resurrection begins when we first
show obedience to God, and is brought to completion by our perseverance in
doing his will. Our second resurrection begins with our glorification and
endures for all eternity. If we continue in obedience till the end of our
lives, then we shall also abide in a glory that knows no end.

The first resurrection has a glory of its own,
a glory of both body and soul. Let us see what the apostle says about this twofold
glory. Of bodily glory here below he says: Far be it from me to glory in anything
but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. As for the soul's glory, he explains that our glory is in the hope of adoption
as God's children.  

But the glory belonging to the second resurrection
will be the glory of the soul that sees God in the glory of his divinity, and
the glory of the body in its state of incorruptibility, when this perishable
nature of ours puts on imperishability and this mortal nature puts  on immortality. In that future life the saints
will be doubly clad. Robed in white and holding lyre and harp, they will sing
and play in their glory, praising God together for all eternity. Their mouths
will be filled with songs of rejoicing and their lips with hymns of gladness,
as they praise and honour our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God enthroned over all,
blessed forevermore. Amen.

            Responsory          Rom 6:3.8; Rv 20:6

All of
us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death. + If we have died with Christ we shall also
live with him, alleluia.

v. Blessed and holy are
they who share in the first resurrection. The second death will have no power
over them; they shall be priests of God and of Christ.+ If we have ...

   

Lambeth Palace  built on land bought by Baldwin of Forde