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.

All Saints (C) – Homily of Fr. Aelred.

Friday if First of November

   All Saints: First Friday of the Month.
On the first attempt with CanCord, it back fired that the inner memory was full, and could not record. Hope to lerarn more.
D.

All Saints (C) – Homily of Fr. Aelred.

Intro   Today is the Solemnity of All  Saints, when we celebrate the canonised saints and those saints known to God alone.

Homily In the saints the Church presents the heroes and heroines of Christianity as models and intercessors. Although the saints had their personal failings, they still provide us with admirable examples at divine power at work in human beings. Alban Butler wrote in the 18^th century: “The lives of the saints furnish the Christian with a daily spiritual entertainment, which is not less agreeable than affecting and instructive”. And speaking of the saints Vatican II said, “ To look on the lives of those who have faithfully followed Christ is to be inspired with a new reason for seeking the city which is to come … God shows us in a vivid way his presence and his presence and his face in the lives of those companions of ours who are more perfectly transformed into the image of Christ”.

Like St. Paul the saints can say, “I live, not now I, but Christ lives in me”” Therefore honour given to the saints is given to Christ.

The 1^st  Reading from the Book of the Apocalypse shows us in heavenly symbolic fashion the saints around the throne in heaven. These have the seal of the living God on their foreheads. This divine signet ring is like of an orients monarch which marked  and sealed as his property. The sealing of God’s servants does not symbolize protection from tribulation and death but means being sustained in and through tribulation.  These martyrs have won their victory by suffering death, like Christ himself, not by inflicting hurt. A glorious destiny awaits the saints, and us too, but precisely as faithful followers of the suffering Christ. “Was it not necessary that Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory.” This is the divine pattern.

According to St. Paul the more excellent way of following Christ is through the exercise of agape, love. It is the highest of the divine gifts, and its acquisition was the foremost aim of all the saints. St. John of the Cross said, “At the evening of life, we shall be judged by our love”. And another great Catholic sage, Jaque Maritain, said, “In the evening of life there is no greater than to have loved Jesus Christ”.

Prayer Lord God, grant us, with all the saints, the peace and joy of heaven. We ask this thro’ Christ our Lord.

Note:
The Monastic Night Office Second Reading, Anastasius of Sinai (PC 89, 1192-1193)