Cistercian Trappists, General Chapter at Assisi Gallery 2. Abbot Mark Caira, ocso. Photographer.

Cistercian Trappists, General Chapter at Assisi

Gallery 1.
Abbot Mark Caira, ocso.
Photographer.

Testing mutiple fike of pics.

Simon & Jude, 28 Oct 2011

   

Fr. Michael Casey ocso

MONASTIC ANTHROPOLOGY SEMINAR 

SANCTA MARIA ABBEY, NUNRAW,

SCOTLAND.

16 – 29 October, 2011

Abbot Mark Nunraw

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Abbot Mark . . .
Sent: Friday, 28 October 2011, 21:11
Subject: Intro MassThe Introduction for today's Mass:

Intro Mass                                                      Simon & Jude, 28 Oct 2011

Today we celebrate the feast of Sts Simon and Jude.  This is the other Simon among the twelve, called the Zealot, and the other Jude – not the Iscariot.

This will be the last celebration of the Eucharist at the seminar for some of us, so I want to take this opportunity to say publicly how well everyone has fitted into the spirit of the meeting and accepted the arrangements that have been made – both among the Nunraw community as well as our good natured extended community.  I thank you all for that.

It is the final day but only the beginning of something else.  I say that because this time together has brought to the surface thoughts and values that need to be worked at, to be properly digested, if we are to make them our own.  Not least there are the faces that won’t be readily forgotten.  This past fortnight has been a gift for which we give thanks to God, and to Michael for being the channel through which we received them.

Jude has traditionally been revered as the patron of Hopeless Cases.  What a wonderfully appropriate feast to have on our final day.  But, after two weeks probing texts and turning them upside down in an entertainingly way with Fr Michael, I hope he thinks St Jude has been successfully at work among us.

Saints Simon and Jude 28 October

Night Office
First Reading
From the Letter of Paul to the Corinthians (1:18 -2:25)
Third Reading
Commentary on the Gospel Luke 6:12-16.

SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE

Gospel

From the gospel according to Luke (6:12-16)

Third Reading From a commentary on Luke by Saint Cyril of Alexandria (PC ri, 580-584)

Everything Christ did was for our benefit and the good of all who believe in him. He set his own actions before us as a kind of model of the spiritual life to make us into true worshipers. Let us therefore see in the way he acted an example of how we should pray to God.

By withdrawing alone to a mountain as though to a private room, Jesus showed us that we should pray privately, in a secret place where no one can see us, and he taught us to do the same when he said: When you pray, go into your private room. Without wanting to be noticed, we should lift up our hands to pray in purity of heart so that our minds may rise to the heights of divine contemplation, as though ascending to heaven and leaving behind every worldly preoccupation. We should not be fickle about this, or listless and faint-hearted, but eager, full of zeal, and intolerant of mediocrity. You have heard that Christ not only prayed, but spent the whole night in prayer.

Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed all night. In a way known only to himself, far beyond our understanding, he conversed with God, his heavenly Father, thus by his example showing us the way to salvation; for he taught how to pray properly, without going astray. Then he came down from the mountain and appointed the spiritual leaders of the whole world. You are the light of the world, he told them. And referring to this appointment of the holy apostles blessed David says, as though speaking to Christ: You will make them princes over all the earth; they will speak of your name from generation to generation. Certainly, as long as they lived they spoke of Christ's glory, proclaiming the mystery through town and countryside. But now that they have been called to their heavenly home, they speak to us of him just the same through the writings full of wisdom they composed about him.

The priests appointed under the mosaic law, Aaron and his family, were outwardly adorned with sacred vestments. The holy disciples, on the other hand, were distinguished by their spiritual gifts, and their appointment was as prophetic preachers of the gospel with orders to heal the sick, cast out devils, cleanse lepers, and raise the dead. Clothed with the power of Christ, they filled the whole world with wonder.