Blessed are they that Mourn

                                                    The Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi

 Blessed are they that Mourn

Presence of God: Grant, O Lord, that I may shed only such tears as are pleasing to You and that will help me to grow in Your love.

Meditation

1. The Beatitude:  "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." (St. Matthew 5.5), corresponds to the gift of knowledge. Blessed are they who, thoroughly enlightened by the Holy Spirit as to the nothingness of creatures, weep for the time they have spent seeking them, and mourn over the energy and affection they have wasted on the vanities of the world. These are the burning tears of St. Augustine who, in his Confessions, continually laments: "Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved Thee....Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee; creatures kept me far from Thee." These are the tears of the penitent Magdalen, and of St. Peter weeping over his fall; blessed tears cleansing souls from sin and disposing them for friendship with God. These are the tears of souls determined to seek God in preference to all creatures, but who still, because of their frailty, have to reproach themselves daily for some weakness, some slight return to futile earthly satisfactions. The gift of knowledge does not permit us to close our eyes to our infidelities, however slight, but it makes us hate them and weep for them with tears of compunction. One who lives under the influence of this gift will never be careless or superficial in his examinations of conscience; his confessions, though peaceful, will always be sorrowful and accompanied by true contrition. Such were the confessions of the saints; who with the most lively sorrow accused themselves of their slightest imperfections.

The Holy Spirit does not want us to be scrupulous, but He does want us to be very delicate in our fidelity to God. he is not satisfied that we despise the vanities of the world in general, but He wants us to despise them in their most subtle manifestations, such as slight retaliations of self-love, little self-complacencies, or concern for the affection and esteem of others. Blessed the soul who knows how to recognize all its miseries and weep for them, not with tears of discouragement or anxiety, but with tears of profound sorrow, which instead of contracting its heart in fear, will dilate it in repentant love, and cast it into God's arms, with a heart renewed by love and sorrow.

2. The gift of knowledge making us clearly realize the vanity of creatures, convinces us that they are perishable and full of defects; hence, it incites us to place all our hope in God. In this sense, the gift of knowledge perfects and strengthens the virtue of hope so that, without further hesitation, our heart anchors itself in God, recognizing in Him our only strength and support, our only happiness.

The more we hope in God and the beatific possession of Him which awaits us in eternal life, so much the more are we disposed, not only to renounce the happiness and satisfaction which creatures can offer us, but also to embrace all the sacrifices necessary to reach eternal life. Many sacrifices are necessary because we cannot go to God except by following the path traced by The Son of God to lead us to Him: the Way of the Cross. But even though it suffers, the soul who lives by hope can repeat the words of St. Paul: "We faint not...for that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor 4.16-17). The gift of knowledge helps us judge our present sorrows as light when compared with eternal beatitude, in view of which it incites us to bless them, even should they cost us our blood. This is why the Apostle rejoiced and gloried in his tribulations (cf. Rom. 5.3), and St. Francis of Assisi sang, "The joys I hope for are so great that all pain is dear to me."

Under the influence of the gift of knowledge, the soul understands the blessedness of tears, that is, the blessedness of suffering embraced for The Love of God. This gift does not makes us insensible to physical and moral pain; so true is this that the beatitude speaks expressly of "tears," but although it does not keep us from weeping, it does sanctify our weeping and makes us more resigned to God's will, preferring these tears to the vain joys of the world and regarding, them as a means of becoming more like unto Christ crucified. What a difference between such tears and those shed through pride, because we will not submit to God's Will, or because of the capricious resentments of self-love. When a soul has reached the point where it prefers blessed tears shed at the foot of the Cross to the joys of earth, it can hope in the beatitude promised by Jesus: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

Colloquoy

"O Lord, the peace You give us in this world is full of anxieties, tribulations, and persecutions; but then You bring us to a quiet, tranquil peace. I can even say that in the midst of these difficulties You give us Your peace, because the Spirit attest in this way that we are Your children. This means, 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.' Not only will You comfort us in the future, but You turn our very tears into consolation, and war itself into peace. He who loves You, O Lord, finds in the most burning fire of tribulation the cool breeze and the dew of heavenly consolations" (St. Mary Magdalene dei Pazzi).

"Blessed are You, O my God, because You have not demanded from us as the price of Your Kingdom, a long period of suffering, but a very brief one, as brief as life, a moment compared with an eternity of happiness! Truly, if for love of You, we had to endure for hundreds of thousands of years, sufferings a thousand times harder, more painful and severe, we should have accepted Your decree with immense joy and longing, and thanked You on our knees with our hands joined. How much more then, should we thank You now that, in Your Mercy, You have deigned to give us the shortest time possible of suffering, a time as short as life! Short as an instant, as nothing, because life is nothing compared with eternity.

"Come then, come, O children of God; let us hasten to the Cross of Christ, to sorrow, contempt, and poverty! Grant, O Lord, that I may love You as You have love me, with that absolute fidelity, purity, and love which reserves nothing for self, which gives itself wholly and therefore runs to pain and suffering, seeing and feeling, in all things nothing but love" (St. Angela of Foligno).

Our Riches

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

PRESENCE OF GOD - Teach me, O Lord, to be a faithful, wise administrator of Your goods. 

MEDITATIO

1. Today again, as last Sunday, St. Paul, in the Epistle of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Rom 8.12-17), compares the two lives which always struggle within us: the life of the old man, a slave to sin and the passions, from which come the fruits of death, and that of the new man, the servant, or better, the child of God, producing fruits of life. "If you live according to the flesh, you shall die, but if, by The Spirit, you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live." Baptism has begotten us to the life of The Spirit, but it has not suppressed the life of the flesh in us; the new man must always struggle against the old man, the spiritual must fight against the corporeal. Baptismal grace does not excuse us from this battle, but it gives us the power to sustain it. We must be thoroughly convinced of this so that we will not be deceived or disturbed if, after many years of living a spiritual life, certain passions, which we thought we had subdued forever, revive in us. This is our earthly condition: "The life of man upon earth is a warfare" (Job 7.1), so much so that Jesus said: "The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence" (Mt. 11.12). But this continual struggle should not frighten us; for grace has made us children of God, and as such, we have every right to count on His paternal help. "You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear," says St. Paul, "but you have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba, Father." To increase our belief in this great truth, he adds, "The Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God." It is as though the Apostle would like to say to us: "It is not I who tell you this, but the Holy Spirit who says it and testifies to it within you." The Holy Spirit is in us, in us He supplicates The Heavenly Father, and in us He arouses confidence and trust. "You are not slaves," He says to us, "but children; of what are you afraid?"  This is our great treasure: to be children of God, co-heirs with Christ, temples of The Holy Spirit.

2. Today's Gospel (Lk. 16.1-9) teaches us by means of a parable - which at first sight seems a little disconcerting - how to be wise in administering the great riches of our life of grace. When Jesus spoke this parable, he certainly had no intention of praising the conduct of the "unjust" steward who, after wasting his master's goods during his whole stewardship, continued to steal even when he learned that he was to be discharged. However, Jesus did praise him for the clever way he made sure of his own future. The lesson of the parable hinges on this point: "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. And I say to you: Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings." Jesus exhorts the "children of light" not to be less shrewd in providing for their eternal interests than the "children of darkness" are in assuming for themselves the goods of earth.

We also, like the steward in the parable, have received from God a patrimony to administer, that is, our natural gifts, and more particularly, our supernatural gifts, and all the graces, holy inspirations, and promptings to good which God has bestowed upon us. The hour for rendering an account will come for us too, and we shall have to admit that we have often been unfaithful in trafficking with the gifts of God, in making the treasures of grace fructify in our soul. How can we atone for our infidelities? This is the moment to put into practice the teaching of the parable by which, as St. Augustine says, "God admonishes all of us to use our earthly goods to make friends of their benefactors, will be the cause of their admission into Heaven." In other words, we must pay our debts to God by charity toward our neighbour, for Sacred Scripture tells us, "Charity coverth a multitude of sins" (1 Pt 4.8). This does not mean material charity alone, but also spiritual charity and not in great things only, but in little ones too - yes, even in the very least things, such as a glass of water given for the Love of God.  These little acts of charity, which are always within out power, are the riches by which we pay our debts and put in order "our stewardship."


Colluquia

"O Lord, it is Your Spirit which combats within me. You gave it to me to destroy the deeds of the flesh. Moved by Your Spirit, I keep up the struggle because I have a powerful helper; my sins have slain, wounded and humbled me; but You, my Creator, were wounded for me, and by Your death You overcame mine. I bear within myself human frailty and the chains of my former slavery; in my members there is a law which opposes the law of the spirit and would drag me into the slavery of sin; my corruptible body still weighs upon my soul. Although I am made strong by Your Grace, as long as I continue to carry Your treasure in this earthen vessel, I shall always have to suffer because of my frailty. You are the stability which makes me firm against all temptations; if they increase and frighten me, You are my refuge. 'You are my hope, my inheritance in the land of the living.'

"Oh! how much I owe You, my LORD GOD, who redeemed me at so great a price! Oh! how much I ought to love, bless, praise, honour, and glorify You who have loved me so much! I shall give praise to Your Name, O God, who made me capable of receiving the great glory of being Your son, I owe to You all I have, all that is of use for my life, all that I know and love.  Who possesses anything that is not Yours? Bestow Your gifts on me, O Lord our God, so that made rich by You, I may serve and please You, and every day return thanks to You for all that Your mercy has done for me. I cannot serve You or please You without making use of Your own gifts to me" (cf. St. Augustine).

Mystery of Love

Mediatio

1.  All God's activitity for man's benefit is a work of love;  it is summed up in the immense mystery of love which causes Him, the sovereign, infinite Good, to raise man to Himself, making him, a creature, share in His Divine Nature by communicating His own life to him.  It was precisely to communicate this life, to unite man to God, that The Word became incarnate.  In His Person the divinity was to be united directly to the most sacred humanity of Jesus, and through it, to the whole human race.  By virture of the Incarnation of The Word and of the grace He merited for us, every man has the right to call Jesus his Brother, to call God his Father and to aspire to union with Him.  The way of union with God is thus opened to man.  By becoming incarnate and later dying on the Cross, the Son of God not only removed the obstacles to this union, but He also provided all we need to gain it, or rather, He Himself became the Way.  Through union with Jesus, man is united to God.

It is not surprising that the love of Jesus, surpassing all measure, impelled Him to find a means of uniting Himself to each one of us in the most intimate and personal manner;  this He found in the Eucharist.  Having become our Food, Jesus makes us one with Him, and thus makes us share most directly in His Divine Life, in His union with The Father and with The Trinity.

By assuming our flesh in the Incarnation,  the Son of God united Himself once and for all with the human race.  In the Eucharist, He continues to unite Himself to each individual who receives Him.  Thus we undestand how the Eucharist, according to the mind of the Fathers of the Church, may really be "considered as a continuation and extension of the Incarnation; by it the substance of the Incarnate Word is united to every man (Mirae Caritatis)."


2.  The plan of Divine Love, that is, the desire to bring men to God and to communicate the divine nature and life to them, finds its supreme realization in the Blessed Sacrament.  In the consecrated Host, we have not only Christ's Body, Blood, and Soul, but also the divinity of the Son of God and, therefore, God Himself.  What more potent means could God use to unite us to Himself and to make us share His nature and life?  Where could we find a more lifegiving food than the Body of Christ, which through its personal union with the Word, is the source of all life and grace?  By giving Himself to us, Jesus nourishes us with His substance, assimilates us to Himself, and personally communicates divine life to us.  Jesus also gives us grace and thereby communicates the divine nature to us by means of the other Sacraments too;  but in them, we have His action only, and that, only during the reception of the Sacrament.  For example, when the priest absolves us from our sins, Jesus produces grace in us by His operative power;  in the Eucharist, however, it is Jesus Himself who is the Sacrament, coming to us personally in the integrity of His Person, that of the God-Man.  When we receive the Sacred Host, we not only receive Christ's action in our soul, but we actually possess His Person, really and physically present.  We are given not only an increase of grace, but Jesus, the very sourse of grace.  We not only enjoy a new participation in divine life, we possess the Incarnate Word, who takes us with Himself to the heart of The Trinity.

Furthermore, whereas material food is assimilated by the one who eats it and is changed into that person's body and blood, Jesus, the Living Bread, has the power to assimilate and change into Himself those who partake of Him.  "Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ, tends to transform us into what we eat," says St. Leo, and St. John Chrysostom notes:  "Christ has united Himself to us and infused His Body into uss, that we may be one thing with Him as a body is fitted to its head.  Such is the union of those on fire with love (Roman Breviary)."


Colluquia

"O Eternal Trinity!  O fire and abyss of charity!  How could our redemption benefit You?  It could not, for You, our God, have no need of us.  To whom then comes this benefit?  Only to man.  O inestimable charity!  Even as You, true God and true Man, gave Yourself entirely to us, so also You left Yourself entirely for us, to be our food, so that during our earthly pilgrimmage we would not faint with weariness, but would be strengthened by You, our celestial Bread.  O man, what has your God left you?  He has left you Himself, wholly God and wholly Man, concealed under the whiteness of bread.  O fire of love!  Was it not enough for You to have created us to Your image and likeness, and to have re-created us in grace through the Blood of Your Son, without giving Yourself wholly to us as our Food, O God, Divine Essence?  What impelled You to do this?  Your charity alone.  It was not enough for You to send Your Word to us for our redemption;  neither were You content to give Him to us as our Food, but in the excess of Your love for Your creatures, You gave to man the whole divine essence.  And not only, O Lord, do You give Yourself to us, but by nourishing us with this divine Food, You make us strong with Your power against the attacks of the demons, insults from creatures, the rebellion of our flesh, and every sorrow and tribulation, from whatever source it may come.

"O Bread of Angels, sovereign, eternal purity, You ask and want such transparency in a soul who receives You in this sweet Sacrament, that if it were possible, the very angels would have to purify themselves in the presence of such an august mystery.  How can my soul become purified?  In the fire of Your charity, O eternal God, by bathing itself in the Blood of Your only-begotten Son.  O wretched soul of mine, how can you approach such a great mystery without sufficient purification?  I will take off, then, the loathsome garments of my will and clothe myself, O Lord, with Your eternal will (St. Catherine of Siena)!"  Amen.

The Man of Sorrows

Tuesday of Holy Week

PRESENCE OF GOD - O suffering Jesus, grant that I may read in Your Passion Your love for me.


MEDITATIO

1.  Today's Mass contains two lessons from Isaias (62.11-63.1-7-53.1-12) which describe in a very impressive way the figure of Jesus, the Man of Sorrows.  It is The Suffering Christ who presents Himself to us, covered with the shining purple of is Blood, wounded from head to foot.  "Why then is Thy apparel red, and Thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress?  I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with Me."  All alone Jesus trod the winepress of His Passion.  Let us think of His agony in the Garden of Olives, where the vehemence of His grief covered all His members with a bloody sweat.  Let us think of the moment when Pilate, after having Him scourged, brought Him before the mob, saying:  "Behold the Man!"  Jesus stood there, His head crowned with thorns, His flesh lacerated by the whips;  the brilliant red of His Blood mingled with the purple of His cloak, that cloak of derision with which the soldiers had clothed their mock king.  Christ was offering Himself as a sacrifice for men, shedding His Blood for their salvation, and men were abandoning Him.  "I looked about and there was none to help;  I sought, and there was none to give aid" (Roman Missal).  Where were the sick whom He had cured, the blind, who at the touch of His Hand had recovered their sight, the dead who were raised to life, the thousands whom He had miraculously fed with bread in the wilderness, the wretched without number who in countless ways had experienced His goodness?  Before Jesus there was only an infuriated mob clamoring: "Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!  Even the Apostles, His most intimate friends, had fled;  indeed one of them had betrayed Him:  "If he that hated Me had spoken great things against Me, I would perhaps have hidden Myself from him!  But thou, a man of one mind, My guide, and My familiar, who didst take sweetmeats together with Me" (Ps 54.13-14).  We read these words today, as on all the Wednesdays of the year, in the psalms of Terce.  To this text which is so deeply expressive of the bitterness Jesus felt when betrayed and abandoned by His own, there is a corresponding response at Matins:  "Instead of loving Me,  they decried Me, and returned evil for good, and hate in exchange for My Love" (Roman Breviary).

     As we contemplate Jesus in His Passion, each one of us can say to himself, "Dilexit me, et tradidit semetipsum pro me", He loved me, and delivered Himself for me (Gal 2.20);  and it would be well to add, "How have I repaid His Love?"

2.  Jesus is singularly worthy of the gratitude and fidelity of men.  No one has ever done more for them than He;  yet no one has suffered more than He the bitterness of ingratitude and treachery.

     Let us review for a moment the prologue of St. John's Gospel, which presents Jesus to us in all His Divine Majesty, in the eternal splendour of The Word, the "True Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world."  Compare it then wit the lesson from Isaias (2nd lesson of the Mass), which describes the opprobrium and ignominy to which His Passion has reduced Him.  The result should be a deeper understanding of the two great truths that emerge:  the exceeding charity with which Jesus has loved us, and the enormous gravity of sin.

     Of Him, The Son of God, it was written:  "There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness:  and we have seen Him, and there was no sightliness that we should be desirous of Him:  despised adn the most abject of men, a man of sorrows....His look was, as it were hidden."  He has no beauty, He who is the splendour of The Father.  He seeks to hide His Face, He, the sight of whose face is the beatitude of the angels and saints.  He is so disfigured that He seems like a leper, so abject that no account is made of Him.  "Surely He hat borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows" - infirmities and sorrows are the consequences of sin - "He was wounded for our iniquities and bruised for our sins....The Lord took all our iniquity upon Himself."

     The consideration of the horror of sin should throw into relief the other great truth of The Passion;  namely, the inexpressible love of Christ.  This love made Him willingly accept His Passion;  and having accepted it because "He willed it,"  He did not evade His enemies, but freely gave Himself into their hands.  Let us recall the moment when Jesus, by His Divine Power, cast to the ground the soldiers who had come to arrest Him, and having said that, if He wished, He could have legions of angels to defend Him, allowed them to take and bind Him without any resistance.  Let us remember that, when He was taken prisoner and condemned, he did not hesitate to say to the Roman governor, "Thou shouldst not have any power against Me, unless it were given thee from above" (St. John 19.11).  Jesus is the victim.  He goes willingly to be sacrificed;  He immolates Himself lovingly, with sovereign liberty.  We touch here the summit of love, the summit of liberty, for we speak of the love and the liberty of God.


COLLOQUIA

     "O sweet Jesus, I understand what You must be feeling!  O good Jesus, meek and loving!  You suffered martyrdom by the many wounds caused by the scourgin and the nails.  You were crowned with thorns.  How many, O good Jesus, were they who struck You!  Your Father struck You, since He did not spare You, but made You a victim for all of us.  You struck Yourself when You offered Your soul to death, that soul which cannot be taken from You against Your will.  The disciple who betrayed You with a kiss struck You too.  The Jews struck You with their hands and feet, and the Gentiles struck You with whips and pierced You with nails.  Oh! how many people, how many humiliations, how many executioners!

     "And how many gave You over!  The Heavenly Father gave You for us, and You gave Yourself, as St. Pau joyfully says:  'He loved me and delivered Himself up for me.'

     "What a marvelous exchange!  The Master delivers Himself for a slave, God for man, The Creator for the creature,  The Innocent One for the sinner.  You put Yourself into the hands of the traitor, the faithless disciple.  The traitor handed You over to the Jews.  The wicked Jews deliever You to the Gentiles to be mocked, scourged, spit upon, and crucified.  You had said these things;  You had foretold them, and they came to pass.  Then, when all was accomplished, You were crucified and numbered among the wicked.  But it was not enough that You were wounded.  To the pain of Your wounds, they added other ignominies and, to slake Your burning thirst, they gave You wine mixed with myrrh and gall.

    "I weep for You, my King, my Lord, and Master, my Father and Brother, my Beloved Jesus" (St. Bonaventure).

The Meek Lamb

Tuesday of Holy Week

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, give me the grace to penetrate the abyss of sorrow made by sin in Your Heart, so full of meekness.


Meditatio

1.  In the Epistle of today's Mass, Jeremias (11.18-20) speaks to us as The Suffering Saviour:  "I was as a meek lamb that is carried to be a victim."  This sentence expresses the attitude of Jesus toward the bitterness of His Passion.  He knew every one of these sufferings in all their most concrete particulars;  His Heart had undergone them by anticipation, and the thought of them never left Him for an instant during the course of His Life on earth.  If The Passion, in its historical reality, took place in less than twenty-four hours, in its spiritual reality it spanned His entire life.

     Jesus knew what was waiting Him,  His Heart was tortured by it;  and yet He not only accepted but ardently desired that hour, "His hour";   and He gave Himself into the hands of His enemies with th meekness of a lamb being led to the slaughter.  "I have left My house," He says again through the mouth of Jeremias.  "...I have delivered My Beloved Soul into the hands of My enemies"  (Roman Breviary).  Judas betrayed Him, His enemies dragged Him before the tribunal, they condemned Him to death, they tortured His body horribly;  but Jesus, even in His Passion, remained always God, remained always The Master, The Lord.  "I have power to lay down My Life and to take it up again,"  says the liturgy in today's Vespers (Roman Breviary), Jesus went to His Passion "because it was His Own Will" (Isaias 53.7).  He willed it because, as He Himself said, "This is the command which I have received from My Father"   (St. John 10.18)

     However, His ardent desire for The Passion did not prevent Him from tasting all its bitterness.  "The sorrows of death have encompassed me...Insults and terrors I have suffered from those who called themselves My friends....God of Israel, because of You, I have suffered opprobrium, and shame has covered My Face" (Roman Breviary).  Let us try to sound the depths of these sacred texts which we read in today's liturgy, in order that we may have a better understanding of the most bitter Passion of Christ.

2.  Today at Mass we read The Passion as recountered by St. Mark, Peter's disciple (14.32-72-15.1-46).  No other Evangelist has described so minutely the denial of Peter;  it is the humble confession which the chief of the Apostles makes of himself through the mouth of his disciple.  During the Last Supper, when Jesus predicted that the Apostles would desert Him that very night, Peter had protested with all the vigour of his ardent temperament:  "Although all shall be scandalized in Thee, yet not I!"  In vain did The Master fortell his desertion, outling it in detail:  "Even in this night, before the cock crows twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice."  An overweening confidence in himself had blinded Peter to the truth of Jesus' words, to the possibility of his own weakness.  "Although I should die together with Thee, I will not deny Thee."  Peter was sincere in his protestation, but he sinned through presumption;  the practical experience of human misery and frailty, by which no one, even the most courageous, can remain faithful to duty without divine aid, was lacking to him.  His initial steps along this road would be aken in Gethsemane, when he, like the others, would be unable to watch "one hour" with The Master.  Further, at the time of Jesus's arrest he would flee away trembling with fear.  But these two episodes would not be enough to cure him of his presumption;  he would need a third, the saddest of all.

  

In the courtyard of Caiphas' palace, where, having recovered from his first fright, Peter had gone to watch the turn of events, he was recognized by a maid as a disciple of Jesus.  Seized by the fear of being involved in The Master's trial, he denied the accusation immediately, saying, "I know Him not."  Having fallen once, he had difficulty in recovering himself, and when questioned again, he made a second, even a third denial.  "As he was yet speaking, the cock crew, and The Lord turning, looked on Peter."  That crowing of the cock, and much more, that look full of love and sorrow, made him enter into himself, "and going out, he wept bitterly" (St. Luke 22.62). 

The blindfold of presumption fell from his eyes;  and Peter, who sincerely loved Jesus, acknowledged his weakness, his fault.  The loving glance of The Master had saved him.  Because Peter no longer relied on himself, Jesus could rely upon him and would entrust His flock to him.  The lesson is clear.  As long as a soul depends solely upon itself, it is not ready to be sanctified, nor to cooperate efficaciously in the sanctification of others.


Colloquia

     "O Lord of my soul, how quick we are to offend You!  But how much quicker are You to forgive us! What am I saying, Lord!  'The sorrows of death have encompassed me.'  Alas!  What a great evil is sin, since it could put God Himself to death with such terrible sufferings!  And these same sufferings surround You today, O my Lord!  Where can You go that You are not tortured?  Men cover You with wouds in all Your members.

     "Christians, this is the hour to defend your King and to keep Him company in the profound isolation in which He finds Himself.  How few, O Lord, are the servants who remain faithful to You!...The worst of it is that there are some who proess to be Your friends in public, but who sell You in secret.  You can scarcely find one in whom You can trust.  O my God, true Friend, how badly does he repay You who betrays You!

     "O true Christians, come to weep with your God!  It was not only over Lazarus that He shed tears of compassion, but over all those who, in spite of His call, would never rise from the dead.  At that time, my Love, You saw even the sins that I would commit against You.  May they be at an end, and wth them, those of all sinners.  Grant that these dead may come to life.  May Your Voice, Lord, be strong enough to give them life, even if they do not ask it of You.  Lazarus did not ask You to bring him back to life, and yet You restored life to him at the prayer of a sinner.  Here is another sinner, my God, and much more culpable than she was.  Let, then, Your mercy shine forth!  I ask it of You in spite of my wretchedness, for those who will not ask" (St. Teresa de Jesus).

The Supper at Bethany

Monday of Holy Week

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Lord, with Mary of Bethany I wish to pay my humble, devout homage to Your Sacred Body before it is disfigured by the Passion.

Meditatio

1.  The Gospel for today (St. John 12.1-9) tells us of this impressive scene:  "Jesus therefore, six days before the Pasch, came to Bethany...and they made Him a supper there;  and Martha served...Mary, therefore, took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair."  Martha, as usual, was busy about many things.  Mary, however, paid attention only to Jesus;  to show respect to Him, it did not seem extravagent to her to pour over Him a whole vase of precious perfume.  Some of those present murmured, "Why this waste?  Could not the ointment have been sold...and the price given to the poor?" And they murmured against her (St. Mark 14.4-5).  Mary said nothing and made no excuses;  completely absorbed in her adored Master, she continued her work of devotion and love.

     Mary is the symbol of the soul in love with God, the soul who gives herself exclusively to Him, consuming for Him all that she is and all that she has.  She is the symbol of those souls who give up, in whole or in part, exterior activity, in order to consecrate themselves more fully to the immediate service of God and to devote themselves to a life of more intimate union with Him.  This total consecration to The Lord is deemed wasteful by those who fail to understand it - although the same offering, it otherwise employed, would cause no complaint.  If everything we are and have is His gift, can it be a waste to sacrifice it in His Honour and, by so acting, to repair for the indifference of countless souls who seldom, if ever, think of Him?

     Money, time, strength, and even human lives spent in the immediate service of The Lord, far from being wasted, reach therein the perfection of their being.  Moreover, by this consecration, they conform to the proper scales of values.  Giving alms to the poor is a duty, but the worship and love of God is a higher obligation.  If urgent works of charity sometimes require us to leave His service for that of our neighbour, no change in the hierarchy of importance is thereby implied.  God must always have the first place.

Jesus Himself then comes to Mary's defense:  "Let her be, that she may keep this perfume against the day of My burial."  In the name of all those who love, Mary gave The Sacred Body of Jesus, before it was disfigured by the Passion, the ultimate homage of an ardent love and devotion.

2.  In St. John's Gospel it is clearly stated that the murmurings about Mary's act were uttered by Judas Iscariot.  The sinister face of the traitor appears darker still beside that of the loyal Mary:  physically, he is still numbered among the Twelve, but spiritually, he has been cut off from them for a long time.  Ever since the previous year, when The Master ahd told them about The Eucharist, Judas was lost. Referring to him on one occasion, Jesus had said, "Have not I chosen you twelve;  and one of you is a devil" (St. John 6.71).  Judas had been chosen by Jesus with a love of predilection;  he had been admitted to the group of His closest friends and, like the eleven others, had received the great grace of the apostolate.  In the beginning, he must have been faithful;  but later, attachment to worldly things and avarice began to take possession of him, so as to completely chill his love for The Master and transform the Apostle into a traitor.  Because of His Divine foreknowledge, Jesus had expected the treachery;  and yet, since Judas had been originally worthy of His trust, He had placed him on an equal footing with the other members of the apostolic college.  Subsequently, although he had already become a liar, Jesus continued to treat him like the others, showing him the same love and esteem.  This was very painful to the sensitive Heart of Jesus, but He would not act otherwise, He wished that we might see with what love, patience, and delicacy He treats even His most stubborn enemies.  How many times must The Master have tried to enlighten that when He gave His instructions on detachment from darkened mind!  Certainly, He was thinking of Judas' worldly goods:  "You cannot serve God and mammon....the loss of His own soul?" (St. Matthew 6.24-16.26).  However, these words,which should have been an affectionate reprove to the traitor, did not touch him.  Judas represents those souls who have received from God graces of predilection, but who prove to be unworthy of them, because of their infidelities,  Consecrated souls must, therefore, be very faithful to the grace of their vocation and must not permit the slightest attachment to take root in their hearts.


Colloquia

     Here are two paths, Lord, as diametrically opposed as possible:  one of fidelity and one of betrayal, the loving fidelity of Mary of Bethany, the horrible treachery of Judas,  O Lord, how I should like to offer You a heart like Mary's!  How I should like to see the traitor in me entirely dead and destroyed!

     But You tell me:  "Watch ye, and pray that you enter not into temptation!"  (St. Mark 14.38)  Oh!  How necessary it is for me to watch and pray, so that the enemy will not come to sow the poisonous germs of treason in my heart!  May I be faithful to You, Lord, faithful at any cost, in big things as well as in small, so that the foxes of little attachments will never succeed in invading and destroying the vineyard of my heart!

     "Lord Jesus, when I meditate on Your Passion, the first things that strikes me is the perfidy of the traitor.  He was so full of the venom of bad faith that he actually betrayed You - You, his Master and Lord.  He was inflamed with such cupidity that he sold his God for money, and in exchange for a few vile coins delivered up Your Precious Blood.  His ingratitude went so far that he persecuted even to death Him who had raised him to the height of the apostolate....O Jesus, how great was Your Goodness toward this hard-hearted disciple!  Although his wickedness was so great, I am much more impressed by Your gentleness and meekness, O Lamb of God!  You have given me this meekness as a model.  Behold, O Lord, the man whom You allowed to share Your most special confidences, the man who seemed to be so united to Your, Your Apostle, Your friend, the man who ate Your Bread, and who, at the Last Supper, tasted with You The Sweet Cup, and this man committed this monstrous crime against Your, his Master!  But, in spite of all this at the time of betrayal, You, O meek Lamb, did not refuse the kiss of that mouth so full of malice.  You gave him everything, even as You gave to the other Apostles, in order not to deprive him of anything that might melt the hardness of his evil heart" (St. Bonaventure).

     O Jesus, by the atrocious suffering inflicted on Your Hear by that infamous treachery, grant me, I beg of You, the grace of a fidelity that is total, loving, and devoted.  Amen.