Septuagesima Week. Chapter from "The Way that Leads to God" by the Abbe A. Saudreau. Love of self in good people continued.

50. Self-love is a most serious failing, whether it shows itself by vanity, by over-susceptibility, or by excessive self-absorbtion. It is the creature laying claim to that which is not its own, appropriating to its private use that which due to God. The Christian soul, the pious soul, will say faithfully and with all its heart: "Glory be to the father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost". And this wish is sincere. But why, then, instead of rendering to the most adorable Trinity all the glory that belongs to God, do they try to rob Him of a portion of it? God has said: "I will not give my glory to another" (Gloriam meam alteri non dabo - Isa. Xlii.8). Now, when you desire to be glorified, admired, and praised for the gifts which you have received from God, the talents with which he has endowed you, the good dispositions with which He has inspired you, the virtues which His grace has caused to be born and to increase within you, you claim the glory which is rightfully His. Quid habes quod non accepisti? ("What hast thou," says St Paul, "that thou hast not received? And, if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" - I Cor. IV.7). "If there be any glory connected with a rich and splendid garment," said St. Francis of Sales, "does it not belong rather to the tailor who made it than to him who wears it? Without the tailor he would be obliged to stand there in all the shame of his native nudity." And, alas! Without God's gifts there would be nought in us but misery and nakedness. But this is very truth of which the vain man cannot be conceived, or, at any rate, it does not take hold of his mind. It is a delight to him to receive praise, to see every kind of virtue and good quality attributed to him; he considers all these eulogies as his right. "They will recognize my talent, they will admire my judgment; they will say that I have a good heart, that I am full of devotion. They will praise my graciousness, the distinction of my manners; they will consider me extremely capable, firm and prudent. And it will all be quite true!". How many thoughts of this kind work in poor, human brains, even those of good Christians? Not that the really virtuous man acts solely with the object of winning admiration, but his intention is often not pure. People propose to do their duty, but it is not solely with the object of pleasing God; they wish also to get some credit for themselves out of the performance.
51. Well may that be termed vainglory of which vain persons are so covetous. They seek the esteem of men, an esteem which is so unstable and often so unjustly bestowed. And what real advantage accrues from other people's good or bad opinion of us? The blame of our fellows does not make us any worse, their praise does not make us better. Whether they criticize us or admire us, our actual worth remains unchanged. Human fame has been aptly compared to a little smoke, which cannot be grasped and is quickly gone. It has been likened also to a shadow. And what is a shadow but an empty seeming? So the esteem of men is but a misleading phantom; it appears to be something, but in reality is nothing. A shadow is uncertain and varying; something much shorter, sometimes much longer that the object which it represents, so that we should be greatly out in our reckonings if we were to take the shadow into account when we wished to ascertain its dimensions. And so is the world's opinion uncertain and variable; sometimes over-favourable, sometimes too severe. Those who value their neighbour in accordance with the world's opinion of them run a great risk of being wrong in their estimates. The shadow is capricious; it flies when it is pursued; it follows those who flee from it. And so they who show themselves over-eager for glory or the esteem of their fellow-man, lose it, while those who, disclaiming such a paltry consideration, are prompted by a nobler motive, win what they have never desired. To pursue a phantom, to seek to feed upon smoke, is not this the act of a maniac? And these vain men cannot excuse themselves by saying that they did not know the worthlessness of the world's opinion; for, like everyone else, more, perhaps, than others, in the day of their disillusioning they have lamented the injustice of human judgments. And they were not wrong , for the world is incessantly at fault. It exalts to the skies those who are deserving of anything but praise; it criticizes and censures those whom it ought to admire. Why not make light, then, of its verdicts; why not say, with St Paul: Mihi autem pro minimo est ut a vobis judicer (But to me it is very small thing to be judged by you or by man's day; but neither do I judge mine own self....but He that judges me is the Lord - 1 Cor. IV.3). Read whole post......

Septuagesima Week. Chapter from "The Way that Leads to God" by the Abbe A. Saudreau
Love of self in good people.
Non efficiamur inanis gloriae cupidi (Let us not be made desirous of vainglory). - Gal.V.26
1. Vanity
49. In describing the hideous idolatry into which an uncombated pride may lead the soul, have we said enough? In stating that to give a deliberate consent to feeling of self-complacency, even in small things, is to do serious harm to the soul, have we made the danger of this self-love clear enough, and put souls sufficiently on their guard against this interior enemy which is so perfidious and dangerous? Alas for this enemy! How many souls are there who admit its formidable character, lament that they are the objects of its attacks, and yet continue to yield to it. They certainly refuse to go as far as it would have them go, but they travel half-way. Two opposite sentiments are contending in their hearts, and neither obtains the full victory. They certainly refuse to go as far as it would have them go, but they travel half-way. Two opposite sentiments are contending in their hearts, and neither obtains the full victory. They detest and at the same time they have a tender feeling for this disordered self-love. It is characteristic of the human heart to be attached to its affections. The fervent soul delights in loving God; it wishes to love Him more; it prays earnestly for the redoubling of its own devotion, and it multiplies its efforts to attain thereto. The sinner, bound by the cords of a guilty affection, cling to his slavery; he obstinately rejects every invitation to renounce his infatuation. To all lovers the thought that their love may one day have an end is heart-rending. So with those in whom two conflicting loves are striving for the monastery - the love of God and a sinful love of the creature; or a legitimate love for our parents, and an affection which these parents condemn. Such persons are in torment because they do not wish to renounce either of these affections. So with the vain man who only resists half-heartedly. He loves his vanity; this failings, of which he may be ashamed, flatters him and please him, notwithstanding. So, too, he who gives way to his susceptibility actually admires it. He loudly protests that it is necessary to be careful of his honour, and that he should consider himself weak and without character if he were to allow his neighbour to fail in consideration towards him, and to treat him without proper respect. In this inner feeling, this more or less avowed partially for a fatal defect, that we must first attack; we must conceive a lively detestation of this self-love within our hearts, and realize the evils of which it is the root.

Next: more on self-love. Read whole post......

Septuagesima Week. Chapter from "The Way that Leads to God" by the Abbe A. Saudreau

2. The love of the pleasures of senses.
43. The love of sensual pleasures is a degrading passion which results in the obscuring of the intelligence and weakening of the whole character. Thus it is that we have seen men of talent stupefied, as it were, by vice, or brave men sapped of their energy after being the heroes of mighty conflicts; while others whom we have once known as full of affection and kindliness become hardhearted, and exhibit the blackest ingratitude. And, further, the vicious man does not seal up within himself the corruption upon which he feeds, and which he breathes out through every pore. His heart, having become a reservoir in which all the impurities gathered by the senses are stored up, overflows upon all around; while his tongue distils its poisoned filth, which is all too often a source of pollution to those who come near him. Read whole post......

Septuagesima Week. "In the steps of humility" by St Bernard of Clairvoux

Here in the outline is a scheme showing the degrees of humility:

12th degree of humility - is to show humility of heart and behaviour by always having the head bowed down and the eyes cast down.
11th degree of humility - A monk sould speek in few and sensible words, gently, and without laughter.
10th degree of humulity - He should not be ready to laugh and giggle at the slightest provocation.
9th degree of humility - He should not speak until he is questioned.
8th degree of humility - He should obey the common rule of the monstery.
7th degree of humility - He should declare himself lower and of less account than all others, and should in his own inmost heart believe it.
6th degree of humility - He should esteem himself unworthy and useless in all respects.
5th degree of humility - He should humbly confess any sins that he has commited.
4th degree of humility - He should be very patient as, in obedience, he meets with difficulties and contradictions.
3rd degree of humility - He should subject himself in all obedience to his superiors.
2nd degree of humility - He should not love his own will, nor delight in fulfiling his own desires.
1st degree of humility - He should, out of a good and holy fear of God, keep himself from sin throughout each day of his life.

The first two steps (of humility) we should climb before entering upon monastic life, but for the third step and all the rest, we must place ourselves under the care and guidance of a superior. Read whole post......

Septuagesima Sunday. The necessity for interior purification - the meditation from "Divine Intimacy" by Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen OCD

PRESENCE OF GOD - Purify my soul, O Lord, so that it may be filled completely with Your light and Your love.

MEDITATION.
1. St John of the Cross compares the soul to a glass window with a ray of sunlight shining on it. If the glass is dirty, "the ray cannot illuminate it, nor transform it completely into its light; its illumination will be in proportion to its clearness. If, on the other hand, it is absolutely clean and spotless, it will be illuminated and transformed in such a way as to appear to be luminous ray itself, and to give the same light" (Ascent of Mount Carmel II,5,6). God is the divine Sun shining upon our souls, desiring to invade them and penetrate them, completely transforming them into His light and love. Before He does this, however, He waits until the soul resolve to free itself from every "creature stain", that is, the stain of sin and inordinate attachments. As soon as God finds a soul is free from mortal sin, He immediately fills it with grace. This precious gift is the first step in the great transformation which the Lord desires to bring about in us. The more we become purified of all sin and imperfection, and of even the slightest attachment; that is, in proportion as we conform our will to the will of God, not only in serious matters of obligation but even in the least details of perfection, the more capable we become of being entirely penetrated and transformed by divine Grace. Grace, the gift of God which makes the soul a participant in the divine nature, is poured forth into the soul in proportion to its degree of interior purity, which always corresponds to the degree of conformity with God's will. Therefore, the soul that wishes to be totally possessed and transformed by divine Grace, must in practice strive to conform fully to the will of God, according to the teaching of St John of the Cross, "so that there may be nothing in the soul that is contrary to the will of God, but that in all and through all its movement may be that of the will of God alone" (AS - Ascent of Mount Carmel I, 11,2).
2. God not only illuminates our soul with the rays of His divine Grace, but He Himself, Unity and Trinity, takes up His abode within us, according to the promise of Jesus: "If anyone love Me... We will come to him, and will make our abode with him" (Jn 14, 23). Even if we possess but one single degree of grace, God dwells in us and invite us to live in real union with Him; nevertheless, He does not give Himself completely to us; He does not consummate us in His unity nor transform us completely into Himself as long as He finds in us the slightest thing contrary to His will. The smallest imperfection is opposed to the will of God because God cannot desire the slightest imperfection and, a fortiori, He cannot admit to perfect union with Himself a soul who keeps any trace - no matter how insignificant - of opposition to His infinite perfection. The basis of all perfect union is total conformity of will and affection. As long as we love and desire, even in small details, anything that God cannot love or desire, our will is not fully conformed to the divine will, and these two wills, God's will and our own will, cannot become one, "that is, the will of God become also the will of the soul" (J.C. AS I, 11,3). As long as we do not attain this perfect union of wills, God, although He dwells in us, will not communicate Himself fully to our soul. Hence St John of the Cross teaches that "the soul disposes itself for union....by purity and love, that is. By renouncement and perfect detachment from all things for God's sake alone." When the soul is thus disposed, God bestows on it "that supernatural favor by which all the things of God and the soul are in one in participant transformation, and the soul seems to be God rather soul, and is indeed God by participation, although its natural being is as distinct from Being of God as it was before... even as the widow has a nature distinct from that of the ray by which it is illuminated" (AS II, 5, 8-7).

COLLOQUY
O my God, for what great things have You created me! You have created me to know You, to love You, to serve You - and not as a slave, but as Your child, Your friend, living in intimacy with You, sitting at Your table, enjoying Your presence. O Jesus, You have said, "I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doth. But I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you" (Jn 15,15). You have revealed to me the great mystery of a God who deigns to love me as His child. To establish His dwelling in my soul, to invite me to a more intimate friendship and union with Him. You Yourself asked for this union for me at the Last Supper: "As Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us" (ibid. 17,21). To be one with God, to be consumed in the Unity of the Most Holy Trinity! O Jesus, how sublime is the ideal You propose to me, how wonderful the invitation you offer me! Yes, Your words apply also to me, a creature of sin and misery. Why should I delay, remaining among the base things and vanities of this earthly life? Why should I, like a reptile, be content to crawl on the ground, when You invite me to soar like an eagle and give me wings with which to do so? Alone I can do nothing and would struggle in vain to free myself from the bonds of sin, to detach myself from creatures and from myself; all my efforts would be useless because my natural weakness constantly tends to drag me down. By Your grace and love are the wings on which I can fly to perfect union with You. With such an ideal, how could I think it hard to undertake and carry out a work of profound purification and total detachment?
O God, make me understand clearly that "real love consist in detaching oneself from everything that is not You" (J.C.,AS II, 5,7). From everything, not only from this thing or that, but from everything, for love is by nature totalitarian, and perfect union demands perfect harmony of wills, desires, and affections. My God, what profound purification I must undergo in order that You may be able to unite me to Yourself who art infinite perfection! Read whole post......

Saturday - Day of Our Lady

Fifth week after Epiphany. Apparition of Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes. The Roman Breviary. Part 3 Winter. Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1936
Matins
Lesson 4
In the fourth year after the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin, that Virgin vouchsafed to appear on several occasion to a certain pious and innocent girl named Bernadette in the vernacular tongue, in a rocky cavern overlooking the grotto of Massabielle, on the banks of the river Gave, near the town of Lourdes in the diocese of Tarbes in France.The immaculate Virgin showed herself as a young and gracious figure, robed in white, with a white veil and blue girdle, and golden roses on her bare feet. At first apparition on February 11, 1858, she taught the child to make the sign of the cross correctly and devoutly, and, taking a chaplet from her own arm, encouraged her by example to say her rosary; this was also repeated in the subsequent apparitions. On the second day the girl, who feared an illusion of the devil, in all simplicity cast holy water at the Virgin, who smiled more graciously than before. At the third apparition, the girl was invited to repeat her visits to the grotto for fifteen days. During this time the Virgin conversed with her, exhorted her to pray for sinners, kiss the ground and do penance; and finally commanded her to tell the priests, that a chapel was to be built in that place, and that it should be approached with solemnities of prayer. She was also bidden drink and wash in the water from the spring, until then invisible, which soon gushed out of the ground. On the feast of the Annunciation, the girl earnestly begged the Virgin, who had so often visited her, to reveal her name, and joining her hands and rising her eyes to heaven, she said: I am the immaculate Conception.
R. Who is she, that cometh forth as the rising morn, Fair as the moon, bright as the sun?
V. She is my dove, my perfect one, my spotless one.

Collect
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the virgin didst prepare a worthy habitation for Thy Son; we humbly beseech Thee, that we who celebrate the feast of the Apparition of the same holy Virgin, may obtain health both of soul and body. Through the same ou Lord.

Tota Pulchra
V.Tota Pulchra es Maria
R. Tota Pulchra es Maria
V. Et macula originalis non est in te
R. Et macula originalis non est in te
V. Tu gloria Jerusalem.
R. Tu laetitia Israel.
V. Tu honorificentia populi nostri.
R. Tu advocata peccatorum.
V. O Maria.
R. O Maria.
V. Virgo prudentissima
R. Mater clementissima.
V. Ora pro nobis.
R. Intercede pro nobis ad Dominum Jesum Christum.
V. In conceptione tua, Virgo, Immaculata fuisti.
R. Ora pro nobis Patrem cujus Filium peperisti.

Let us pray.
O God, who by the Virgin's Immaculate conception didst prepare a worthy dwelling for thy Son, we beseech thee, that thou, who, by the death of the same Son of thine, foreseen by thee, didst preserve her from every stain, wouldst grant by her intercession that we also may be purified, and so to thee. Read whole post......

Of the Virtues of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Of Mary's Faith. From "The Glories of Mary" by St. Alphonsus of Liquori.

As the Blessed Virgin is the mother of holy love and hope, so also is she the mother of faith:"I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope." Eccles. 24,24. And with reason is she so, says Saint Ireneus; for 'the evil done by Eve's incredulity was remedied by Mary's faith'. This is confirmed by Tertullian, who says that because Eve, contrary to the assurance she had received from God, believed the serpent, she brought death to the world; but our Queen, because she believed the angel when he said that she, remaining a virgin, would become the mother of God, brought salvation into the world. For Saint Augustine says, that 'when Mary consented to the incarnation of the Eternal Word, by means of her faith she opened heaven to men'. Richard, on the words of Saint Paul, 'for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife', also says, that 'Mary is the believing woman by whose faith the unbelieving Adam and all his posterity are saved'. Hence, on account of her faith, Elizabeth called the holy Virgin blessed: "Blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished in thee that were spoken by the Lord". And Saint Augustine adds, that 'Mary was rather blessed by receiving the faith of Christ than by conceiving the flesh of Christ'.
Father Suarez says, that the most holy Virgin had more faith than all men and angels. She saw her Son in the crib of Bethlehem, and believed Him the creator of the world. She saw Him fly from Herod, and yet believed Him the King of kings. She saw Him born, and believed Him eternal. She saw him poor and in need of food, and believed Him omnipotent. She observed that He did not speak, and she believed Him infinite wisdom. She heard Him weep, and believed Him the joy of Paradise. In fine, she saw Him in death, despised and crucified, and, although faith wavered in others, Mary remained firm in the belief that He was God. On these words of the Gospel, "there stood by the cross of Jesus His Mother", Saint Antoninus says, 'Mary stood, supported by her faith, which she retained firm in the divinity of Christ. And for this reason, it is', the Saint adds,' that in the office of Tenebrae only one candle is left lighted'. Saint Leo, on this subject, applies to Our Blessed Lady the words of Proverbs, "Her lamp shall not be put out in the night." And on the words of Isaias, "I have trodden the wine-press alone," Saint Thomas remarks that the prophet says a man, on account of the Blessed Virgin, in whom faith never failed. Hence blessed Albert the Great assures us that 'Mary then exercised perfect faith; for even when the disciples were doubting she did not doubt'. Therefore Mary merited by her great faith to become 'the light of all the faithfu'l, as Saint Methodius calls her; and the 'Queen of the true faith', as she is called by Saint Cyril of Alexandria. The holy Church herself attributes to the merits of Mary's faith the destruction of all heresies: 'Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, for thou alone hast destroyed all heresies throughout world.' Saint Thomas of Villanova, explaining the words of the Holy Gost, "Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse...with one of thy eyes", says that 'these eyes denoted Mary's faith, by which she greatly pleased the Son of God.' Here Saint Ildephonsus exhorts us to imitate Mary's faith. But how can we do so? Faith, at the same time that it is a gift, is also a virtue. It is a gift of God, inasmuch as it is a light infused by Him into our souls; and a virtue, inasmuch as the soul has to exercise itself in the practice of it. Hence faith is not only to be the rule of our belief, but also that of our actions; therefore Saint Gregory says, 'He truly believes who puts what he believes in practice', and Saint Augustine, 'Thou sayest, I believe; do what thou sayest, and it is faith'. This is to have a lively faith, to live according to our belief: "My just man liveth by faith." Thus did the Blessed Virgin live very differently from those who do not live in accordance with what they believe, and whose faith is dead, as Saint James declares, "Faith without works is dead". Diogenes sought for the man on earth; but God, amongst the many faithful, seem to seek for a Christian, for few there are who have good works; the greater part have only the name of Christian. To such as these should be applied the words once addressed by Alexander to a cowardly soldier who was also named Alexander: 'Either change thy name or change thy conduct.' But as Father Avila used to say,'it would be better to shut up these poor creatures as madmen, believing, as they do, that an eternity of happiness is prepared for those who lead good lives, and an eternity of misery for those who lead bad ones, and who yet live as if they believed nothing'. Saint Augustine therefore exhorts us to see things with the eyes of Christians, that is to say, with eyes which look at all in the light of faith; for, as Saint Teresa often said, all sins come from a want of faith. Let us therefore entreat the most holy Virgin, by the merits of her faith, to obtain us a lively faith; 'O, Lady, increase our faith,' Read whole post......

Fifth Week after Epiphany. "In the steps of humility" by St Bernard of Clairvoux
Saint Bernard's preface on twelve degrees of pride and humility.
You asked me, dear brother Godfrey, to send you a fuller version of what I said to the brethren in chapter on the steps of humility. This was a big thing to ask me, and because I dearly want to fulfill it, and yet fear that I am incapable of doing so, I did not dare to undertake the task without first sitting down and thinking carefully whether I had the means to complete it. For I was afraid that I would find myself unable to grant your request after I had already started on it. But love has no room for fear, and casts it out. Then another fear assailed me - the peril arising from the praise and glory I would earn by completing the work, far outweighed my fear of the shame that failure would bring with it. And so I hesitated at the crossroads between love and fear, asking myself which way would be safer. Would pride get the better of me as I wrote useful and helpful thoughts about humility, or would my silence make me unhelpful and useless to you in your need?. But when I could come to no clear decision, I thought that the best course would be to send you the main points of the sermons I gave, since the only alternative was to take shelter in a haven of silence. And meanwhile I trust if my poor efforts meet with your approval, your prayers will keep me from growing too proud of my achievements, while if this little work does not come up to your expectations there will be nothing for me to boast of.
Here in outline is a scheme showing the degrees of pride and humility:

1st degree of pride is inquisitiveness, a state in which sight and all other senses wander off in pursuit of things that are of no concern for man's salvation.
2nd degree of pride is instability of mind, which is betrayed by joy at one moment and sadness the next.
3rd degree of pride is frivolity, which is shown by overreadinesse to laugh
4th degree of pride is vainglory, which occurs in one who pours out every thought that comes into his head.
5th degree of pride is singularity, or boasting of one's own deeds.
6th degree of pride is arrogance in thinking oneself more holy than everyone else.
7th degree of pride is presumption, or following one's own opinion in everything, and forcing it on others.
8th degree of pride is self-justification in wrong-doing
9th degree of pride is false confession, which is the very contrary of patience in the face of difficulties and contradictions.
10th degree of pride is rebellion against one's brethren and superiors.
11th degree of pride is freedom to sin and the absence of shame in doing so.
12th degree of pride is the habit of sinning.

In the monastery it is impossible to slip down the last two steps of pride. But notice how common element of all the first six degrees is contempt for brethren; in the next four, contempt for the superior is the keynote, while the last two are both states of contempt of God.

Next: the degrees of humility. Read whole post......

Fifth week after Epiphany
"The way that leads to God" by Abbe A.Saudreau. R&T Washbourne, LTD, 1911
The love of self in good people
&2. susceptibility
54. The vain will have their reward here below. Our Lord has said: Receperunt mercedem suam (Matt.VI,2). And the emptiness of this reward in nowise disabuses them; even when they receive their chastisement, their disappointments and vexetions do not effect their cure, because self-love, the source of so much bitterness, is not cast out, We see this in those susceptible people who are perpetually making fresh troubles for themselves, and who are so very little concerned to correct their faults. Criticism and reproofs affect them beyond measure, To be blamed in any way is a real catastrophe to them. When anyone is not quite satisfied with something that they have done, all their satisfaction is evaporates, their other difficulties are forgotten, they are absorbed by the distress which this disapproval cases them, And a simple word said quite amicably, a slight warning, some advice offered with the best intentions, is often sufficient to wound them. Or a still smaller thing will sometimes suffice-some slight want of attention, some rifling neglect, a mark of indifference. At times their feelings will be hurt by something which existed in their own imagination only. They will consider themselves aggrieved when the culprit never dreamed of offending them. Would that those who are so sensitive where their own dignity is concerned might show themselves as delicate of perception in their dealings with God; as alive to anything which wounds His honour, and as careful not to injure it!
55. But their absurd susceptibility is in itself an injury to the Divine honour, both because it is contrary to humility, to truth, and justice, and also because it is source of discord. What could be more beautiful than that Divine charity which was so perfectly practised by the first Christians, of whom it was said that they had but one heart and one soul? What is more noble, more admirable, than that perfect union of hearts which we see in certain truly Christian circles? And why cannot this concord always exist? why, amongst souls formed for mutual understanding, should these frictions occur, these ill-disguised or sometimes openly avowed feelings of antipathy? why these bitter words, these more or less unfounded reproaches, and even at times these abusive utterances?
Inquire into the cause of these disorders, question those who exhibit so little charity towards their brethren, and you will commonly hear this reply: "But they hurt my feelings, they reproached me unjustly, they accused me falsely!" Such is the usual cause of these resentments. The man was, or thought he was injured; and then all his self-love was up in his arms. Instead of forgetting what was really quite unimportant, he goes over and over it perpetually; he reviews again in his mind all that unamiable conduct, those acts of injustice of which he fancies himself the victim; and in so doing he merely enlarges and poisons the wound. Hence proceed those feeling of aversion, those unfavourable and unjust judgments, based upon grounds the slightness of which he will not see, and from which he perhaps can never again free himself. A susceptible person does not know how to be just towards those by whom he thinks himself offended
56. And good is also hindered thereby. In cases where some useful action might be performed, some good work co-operated in, he will not take any part or give his help. He remains given up to ill-humour; and the most important enterprises will often be rendered abortive by this stupid sulkiness. If the grievance concerns his superiors, the susceptible person will demur and will not obey cheerfully; he will breed a bad spirit amongst others by murmuring and by inciting them to indocility or revolt. If it is against his equals, he will blacken them in their neighbours' eyes; he will not only publish the evil that he knows concerning them, but he will exaggerate their wrong actions and magnify their defects; he will not admit their good qualities, will indulge in unjust strictures with regard to them, in evil suspicions which have no serious foundations; he will prejudice against them those who would otherwise have esteemed and liked them. Read whole post......

Fifth Week after Epiphany.
"The way that leads to God-practical counsels for those who aspire after true piety" by Abbe A Saudreau, translated by Leonora L.Yorke Smith. R&T Washbourne, Ltd, London 1911.

§3. Pride - continued

And to what devices will he not resort to secure admiration! Before clever people he too must be clever; he displays his powers of imagination, his knowledge, his ability. With the virtuous he shows himself a strong advocate of virtue; he affects the language of probity and integrity, he inveighs loudly against vice. The wish to obtain admiration is never absent from him; it makes him compose his countenance, dress his phrases, disguise his thoughts. Sweet simplicity has no attraction for him. "What will my audience think of me?" This is his continual anxiety. If needs be, he will relinquish his own ideas, he will run counter to his own tastes; for what would he not sacrifice to his desire of being admired? And if he exaggerates his merits, he also always finds excuses for his faults; conceals his weaknesses. If he is without any particular virtue, he simulates it; he will even at times control his other passions in order to satisfy his pride. Is he lazy? he will shake off his slothfulness; he will accomplish difficult tasks in the hope of magnifying himself in his own eyes and in the eyes of others. Such were the haughty Pharisee, whom Our Lord reproached with practising their virtues to be seen of men. The vain man is not only capable of almsgiving and fasting (as was the case with these enemies of Our Lord), but he is so athirst for admiration that he even strives to win it by acts which, if inspired by a better motive, would deserve to be called heroic. Gladiators and others greedy for glory have been seen to face death calmly and impassively, having no other care at that awful moment than the thought of bequeathing a reputation for courage to posterity.
46. Of what blindness is not this pride the cause! The humble man is honest and sincere; convinced as he is of his own misery, and making confession of it to God, he does not endeavour to hide it from men, and thus all his path are truth. He is simple and upright in all his doings, with the great and the small, the learned and the ignorant. He is at peace, not being troubled as to what anyone might say or think about him; he is a stranger to those agonies which the proud man endures - agonies as numerous as the persons with whom he comes in contact. But the proud man is not in search of truth. Absorbed as he is in the desire to please or to astonish, he sets himself to deceive others by seductive appearances. He likes to deceive himself, and, wishing at all costs to rise in his own esteem, he ends by thinking himself quite different from what he really is. Those alone know the truth who sincerely desire to do so. The proud man fears it, because it would show him his transgression, and so he flies in the opposite directionn. Is it necessary to add that the Devil, the Father of Lies, encourages this fatal tendency, encompasses the proud man with his snares, entangles him in a host of misconceptions and false ideas, obscures his intellect and enshrouds it little by little in a thick darkness? Very soon these errors,consented to, desired and sought after, becomes invincible, and the proud man finishes by persuading himself that everyone takes him at his own high valuation. If he could fear that he might be mistaken, he would perhaps pray for that light which God grants to the humble. But he loves his delusion, and he intends to go on admiring and idolizing himself to the end. And what deplorable consequences ensue: jealousy with regard to those who might eclipse him; antipathy - hatred, even - towards those who fail to admire, or refuse to submit to him; anger when he is contradicted or thwarted. The proud man is the docile instrument in satan's hands; the Enemy of mankind prefers him to the miser, to the sensual, and even to the impure man, as an assistant in his work of pervertingg souls. For the proud man, provided that he knows how to conceal his repulsive arrogance and to avoid exciting disgust, dominates weaker natures and forces them to accept his errors, or he ingratiates himself by his flatteries. For all means are good to him provided that he be accepted as a teacher whose words must be listened to, as a clever man whose advice is to be followed. All the heresiarch were inordinately proud; in all times those who have founded false schools, who have been the originators, or even propagators, of false doctrines, who have tampered with their brothers' faith and in many instances destroyed it, have been drawn to the novelties of belief by their exaggerated confidence in their own enlightenment. They made an idol of their knowledge or their talents; unconsciously at first, and then deliberately, they have cast God out of their hearts by denying the Divine teaching. These men are the real agents of Satan. So it is with those who, in the Church's conflicts, side with her enemies; those who, without breaking with her openly, show disloyal tendencies, throwing doubt upon her teachings, criticizing the measures taken by those in authority. What is the motive with which they are usually inspired but that of an infatuation for self?
48. The cases in which this insane pride makes a man an idolater of his own person, are less rare than might be supposed. Perhaps the reader is now thinking: "I am very far from falling into these deplorable follies. I do not blind myself to this point; I do not sacrifice everything to the wish to please or to shine. I am aware that I may not be particularly humble, but I see no signs of this senseless pride." It is true that those who read these pages have not, thank God, arrived at the excess which we have just depicted; but do not let us forget that in order to know any monster thoroughly, it is necessary to study it in the adult stage! To get a correct idea of a tree you must not examine it when the first shoot is rising above the ground. The newly hatched snake cannot yet kill with his fangs; the poisonous plant, when it first appears, is still harmless. But take the serpent and rear it, cultivate the poisonous plant, and the day will come when the one and the other will be able to destroy the life of the imprudent person who has cherished them.
The budding voluptuousness, the pride which is just budding to show itself, bears within it the seeds of perdition. If it does not actually slay, it paralyzes, it destroys the spiritual vigour. Those who fight feebly and make concession to their passions, who yield deliberately to the love of ease, to sensual pleasures, to feelings of self-complacency (more especially when the yielding becomes habitual), are doing to their souls an injury the gravity of which they do not understand; they are depraving themselves for all eternity of that superabundance of joy and glory which Our Saviour reserves in Heaven for those who have been His true friends here below. Those, on the other hand, who, realizing the hideousness of these two vices, and how displeasing they are to God, wage a relentless war against them, acquire by this means alone a title to the Divine favours.
Reader, if you have no cause to reproach yourself even of weakness with regard to these worst enemies of your salvation, if your generous soul is sullied only with those few light faults which proceed from the frailty of our poor human nature and are not the result of a considered and deliberate consent, it was none the less important that you should be shown the grave disorders into which a large number of your brethren fall. Your compassion for sinners will be increased thereby, and you will the better understand what prayers, what sacrifices, are necessary to obtain their conversion and their salvation. You will also understand what expiations such sins call for. It was to an innocent soul that the Immaculate Virgin at Lourdes spoke the words:"Penance! Penance! Penance!" Mary desired that this call, addressed to Bernadette, should be heard by all alike-by the just no less than by sinners. Has she been obeyed? And is it not because the good have not thought to make expiation for the guilty that the Divine justice is smitting us today? The epiatory oblations of God's friends are of the greatest worth in His eyes; they are necessary for the appeasing of His justice, and if they are not offered voluntarily, will He not exact them after another and a yet more terrible manner? Read whole post......

St Romuald

Catholic Encyclopedia
Born at Ravenna, probably about 950; died at Val-di-Castro, 19 June, 1027. St. Peter Damian, his first biographer, and almost all the Camaldolese writers assert that St. Romuald's age at his death was one hundred and twenty, and that therefore he was born about 907. This is disputed by most modern writers. Such a date not only results in a series of improbabilities with regard to events in the saint's life, but is also irreconcilable with known dates, and probably was determined from some mistaken inference by St. Peter Damian. In his youth Romuald indulged in the usual thoughtless and even vicious life of the tenth-century noble, yet felt greatly drawn to the eremetical life. At the age of twenty, struck with horror because his father had killed an enemy in a duel, he fled to the Abbey of San Apollinare-in-Classe and after some hesitation entered religion. San Apollinare had recently been reformed by St. Maieul of Cluny, but still was not strict enough in its observance to satisfy Romuald. His injudicious correction of the less zealous aroused such enmity against him that he applied for, and was readily granted, permission to retire to Venice, where he placed himself under the direction of a hermit named Marinus and lived a life of extraordinary severity. About 978, Pietro Orseolo I, Doge of Venice, who had obtained his office by acquiescence in the murder of his predecessor, began to suffer remorse for his crime. On the advice of Guarinus, Abbot of San Miguel-de-Cuxa, in Catalonia, and of Marinus and Romuald, he abandoned his office and relations, and fled to Cuxa, where he took the habit of St. Benedict, while Romuald and Marinus erected a hermitage close to the monastery. For five years the saint lived a life of great austerity, gathering round him a band of disciples. Then, hearing that his father, Sergius, who had become a monk, was tormented with doubts as to his vocation, he returned in haste to Italy, subjected Sergius to severe discipline, and so resolved his doubts. For the next thirty years St. Romuald seems to have wandered about Italy, founding many monasteries and hermitages. For some time he made Pereum his favourite resting place. In 1005 he went to Val-di- Castro for about two years, and left it, prophesying that he would return to die there alone and unaided. Again he wandered about Italy; then attempted to go to Hungary, but was prevented by persistent illness. In 1012 he appeared at Vallombrosa, whence he moved into the Diocese of Arezzo. Here, according to the legend, a certain Maldolus, who had seen a vision of monks in white garments ascending into Heaven, gave him some land, afterwards known as the Campus Maldoli, or Camaldoli. St. Romuald built on this land five cells for hermits, which, with the monastery at Fontebuono, built two years later, became the famous mother-house of the Camaldolese Order (q.v.). In 1013 he retired to Monte-Sitria. In 1021 he went to Bifolco. Five years later he returned to Val-di-Castro where he died, as he had prophesied, alone in his cell. Many miracles were wrought at his tomb, over which an altar was allowed to be erected in 1032. In 1466 his body was found still incorrupt; it was translated to Fabriano in 1481. In 1595 Clement VIII fixed his feast on 7 Feb., the day of the translation of his relics, and extended its celebration to the whole Church. He is represented in art pointing to a ladder on which are monks ascending to Heaven.

[Note: By the Apostolic Constitution Calendarium Romanum, promulgated in 1969, the feast of St. Romuald was assigned, as an "Optional Memorial," to 19 June, the day of his death.] Read whole post......

Fifth Week after Epiphany.
"The way that leads to God-practical counsels for those who aspire after true piety" by Abbe A Saudreau, translated by Leonora L.Yorke Smith. R&T Washbourne, Ltd, London 1911.

§3.Pride.
44. Voluptuousness is the most degrading of all the passions, but it is not the hardest to cure or the most dangerous. Separation from, and, above all, the deceptions and treacheries of those by whom he believed himself to be loved, may bring a man back from the idolatry of the creature to the true God. Sickness may compel the sensualist to control his gross inclinations; serious reverses may detach the avaricious from wordly possessions. At times also the example of virtous lives may make the debauchee enter into himself; the drunkard, his health undermined by excess, groans over his fatal tendency; a wholesome feeling of shame takes possession of those who have been weak enough to yield to all these vices, and occasionally, at any rate, they will conceive a longing to escape from their degradation. But pride, the fatuous admiration for his own qualities, the idolatry of the 'me' - who will cure this grave disease? The proud man is satisfied with himself; he perceives none of his faults, he sees no reasone for wishing to alter his life.
The pride man is his own idol; he holds to it even more tenaciously than the miser to his gold, than the sensualist to the pleasures of the table, or the man caught in some guilty entanglement to the object of his infatuation. Those who carry their incense to other idols admit by this very fact that something is wanting in themselves, and that they require to seek it outside. The proud man, on the contrary, will in no wise admit his own poverty, or owe anything to any other creature. Troubles and obstacles which often daunt other sinners and check their rebellion only irritate the proud man, and strenghten, instead of weakening, his pride. For he kicks against humiliations, and inflates himself the more if anyone seeks to belittle him.
45. What a terrible disorder pride becomes when, from never being resisted, it develops to the point of deserving the name of idolatry! He indeed is a self-wrshipper who makes himself the centre of everything, who feasts himself upon the contemplation of his fancied qualities, judging his fellow-creatures severely, despising them, and considering himself superior to everyone. Nothing can undeceive them. All those who come near him are disgusted with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculous presumption; but he remains none the less pleased with himself. He is so enamoured of self, he makes so little of all that is not self, that even God is of small account in his eyes. Such is his confidence in his own industry and talents that he feels no need of the Divine assistance. One would think that he could dispense with God - that he aspires to usurp His place, and direct the affairs of the world. If annyone points out to him that God's designs may be in opposition to his private aims, and that all his efforts may therefore be in vain, the thought revolts him. There exists within him a germ of that pretension of Lucifer: "I will ascend above the height of the clouds; I will be like the Most High."(Isa. XIV, 14).
He adores himself, and he also wishes to be adored. That people should think about him, should occupy themselves with him, is a joy to him; to be admired and loved is a yet greater delight. But still he is not satisfied. He demands that others ahould be subject to him, for he has a thirst for power. In order to be really contended, he must be able to impose the laws of his will and the decrees of his own wisdom upon others. Read whole post......

"The Church's Year - FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY" by Rev. Fr. Leonard Goffine's
On this Sunday mention is made of the practice of Christian virtues, and of God's sufferance of the wicked upon earth, that by them the just may be exercised in patience.
COLLECT Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy household by Thy continual mercy;that as it leans only upon the hope of Thy heavenly grace, so it may ever be defended by Thy protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc.
EPISTLE (Col. III. 12-17.) Brethren, put ye on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience;bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another; even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so you also. But above all these things, have charity, which is the bond of perfection: and let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, all things, do ye in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Why does St. Paul call charity the bond of perfection?
Because charity comprises in itself and links all the virtues in which perfection consists. For whoever truly loves God and his neighbor, is also good, merciful, humble, modest, patiently bears the weakness of his neighbor, willingly forgives offences, in a word, practices all virtues for the sake of charity.
When does the peace of God rejoice in our hearts?
When we have learned to conquer our evil inclinations, passions, and desires, and have placed order and quiet in our hearts instead. This peace then, like a queen, keeps all the wishes of the soul in harmony, and causes us to enjoy constant peace with our neighbor, and thus serve Christ in concord, as the members of one body serve the head. The best means of preserving this peace are earnest attention to the word of God, mutual imparting of pious exhortations and admonitions, and by singing hymns,psalms, and spiritual canticles.
Why should we do all in the name of Jesus?
Because only then can our works have real worth in the sight of God, and be pleasing to Him, when they are performed for love of Jesus, in His honor, in accordance with His spirit and will. Therefore the apostle admonishes us to do all things,eat,drink, sleep, work &c. in the name of Jesus, and so honor God, the Heavenly Father, and show our gratitude to Him. Oh, how grieved will they be on their death-bed who have neglected to offer God their daily work by a good intention, then they will see, when too late, how deficient they are in meritorious deeds. On the contrary they will rejoice whose consciences testify, that in all their actions they had in view only the will and the honor of God! Would that this might be taken to heart especially by those who have to earn their bread with difficulty and in distress, that they might always unite their hardships and trials with the sufferings and merits of Jesus, offering them to the Heavenly Father, and thus imitating Christ who had no other motive than the will and the glory of His Heavenly Father.
ASPIRATION O God of love, of patience, and of mercy, turn our hearts to the sincere love of our neighbor, and grant, that whatever we do in thoughts, words and actions, we may do in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through Him render thanks to Thee.
ON CHURCH SINGING
"Admonish one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grade in your hearts to God." (Col. III. 16.)The custom of singing in the Church-choir* has its foundation as far back as the Old Testament, when by the arrangement of David, Solomon, and Ezechias,the psalms and other sacred canticles were sung by the priests and Levites.This custom the Catholic Church has retained, according to the precepts of the apostles, (I. Cor. XIV. 26; Eph. V. 19.) and the example of Jesus who,after they had eaten the Pasch, intoned a hymn of praise with His apostles, Matt XXVI. 30)that Christians on earth, like the angels and saints in heaven, (Apoc. V. 8. 9., XIV. 3.) who unceasingly sing His praises, might at certain hours of the day, at least, give praise and thanks to God. In the earliest ages of the Church, the Christians sang hymns of praise and thanksgiving during the holy Sacrifice and other devotional services, often continuing them throughout the whole night; in which case the choir-singers probably were bound to keep the singing in proper order and agreement. In the course of time this custom of all the faithful present singing together ceased in many churches, and became confined to the choir, which was accompanied later by instruments in accordance with the words of David who calls to the praise of the Lord with trumpets, with timbrels, with pleasant psaltery and harps. (Ps, CL. 3, 4., LXXX. 3. 4.) In many churches, where the faithful still sing in concert, if done with pure hearts and true devotion,it is as St. Basil says, "a heavenly occupation, a spiritual burnt offering;it enlightens the spirit, raises it towards heaven, leads man to communion with God, makes the soul rejoice, ends idle talk, puts away laughter,reminds us of the judgment, reconciles enemies. Where the singing of songs resounds' from the contrite heart there God with the angels is present."
*The choir is usually a gallery in the Church in which the singers are stationed; the place where the clergy sing or recite their office, is also called the choir.
GOSPEL (Matt. XIII. 24-30,) At that time, Jesus spoke this parable to the multitudes: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came, and oversowed cockle among the wheat, and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming, said to him: Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence, then, hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy bath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up? And he said: No, lest perhaps, gathering up the cockle,you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye
into my barn. What is understood by the kingdom of heaven? The Church of God, or the collection of all orthodox Christians on earth,destined for heaven. What is meant by the good seed, and by the cockle? The good seed, as Christ Himself says, (Matt. XIII. 38.) signifies the children of the kingdom, that is, the true Christians, the living members of the Church, who being converted by the word of God sown into their hearts become children of God, and bring forth the fruit of good works. The cockle
means the children of iniquity, of the devil, that is, those who do evil; also every wrong, false doctrine which leads men to evil.Who sows the good seed, and by the cockle? The good seed is sown by Jesus, the Son of Man not only directly, but
through His apostles, and the priests, their successors; the evil seed is sown by the devil, or by wicked men whom he uses as his tools.
Who are the men who were asleep?
Those superiors in the Church; those bishops and pastors who take no care of their flock, and do not warn them against seduction, when the devil comes and by wicked men sows the cockle of erroneous doctrine and of crime; and those men who are careless and neglect to hear the word of God and the sacrifice of the Mass, who neglect to pray, and do not receive the Sacraments. In the souls of such the devil sows the seeds of bad thoughts, evil imaginations and desires, from which spring, later, the cockle of pride, impurity, anger, envy, avarice, etc.
Why does not God allow the cockle, that is, the wicked people, to be rooted
out and destroyed?
Because of His patience and long suffering towards the sinner to whom He gives time for repentance, and because of His love for the just from whom He would not, by weeding out the unjust, take away the occasion of practicing virtue and gathering up merits for themselves; for because of the unjust, the just have numerous opportunities to exercise patience, humility, etc.
When is the time of the harvest?
The day of the last judgment when the reapers, that is, the angels, will go out and separate the wicked from the just, and throw the wicked into the fiery furnace; while the just will be taken into everlasting joy. (Matt.XIII. 29.)
PRAYER O faithful Jesus, Thou great lover of our souls, who hast sown the good seed of Thy Divine Word in our hearts, grant that it may be productive, and bear in us fruit for eternal life; protect us from our evil enemy, that he may not sow his erroneous and false doctrine in our hearts, and corrupt the good; preserve us from the sleep of sin, and sloth that we may remain always vigilant and armed against the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, overcome them manfully, and die a happy death. Amen.
ON INCLINATION TO EVIL
Whence then hath it cockle? (Matt. XIII. 27.) Whence comes the inclination to evil in man?
It is the sad consequence of original sin, that is, of that sin which our first parents, by their disobedience, committed in paradise, and which we as their descendants have inherited. This inclination to evil remains even in those who have been baptized, although original sin with its guilt and eternal punishment is taken away in baptism, but it is no sin so long as man does not voluntarily yield. (Cat. Rom. Part. II. 2. .43.)
Why, the sin being removed, does the inclination remain?
To humble us that we may know our frailty and misery, and have recourse to God, our best and most powerful Father, as did St. Paul, when he was much annoyed by the devil of the flesh; (II. Cor. XII. 7. 8.) that the glory of God and the power of Christ should be manifested in us, which except for our weakness could not be; that we might have occasion to fight and to conquer. A soldier cannot battle without opposition, nor win victory and the crown without a contest. Nor can we win the heavenly crown, if no occasion is given us, by temptations, for fight and for victory. "That which tries the combatant," says St. Bernard, "crowns the conqueror." Finally, the inclination remains, that we may learn to endure, in all meekness, the
faults and infirmities of others and to watch ourselves, lest we fall into
the same temptations.

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Fifth Week after Epiphany. The "Roman Breviary"
Matins - lessons 1-3
From the first Epistle to Timothy, chapter 3, 1-16

A faithful saying: if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. It behoveth therefore a bishop to be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, prudent, of good behaviour, chaste, given to hospitality, a teacher, not given to wine, no striker, but modest, not quarrelsome, not covetous: but one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all chastity. But if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Not a neophyte: lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil. Moreover he must have a good testimony of them who are without: lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Deacons in like manner chaste, not double tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre: holding the mystery of faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved: and so let them minister, having no crime. The women in like manner chaste not slanderers, but sober, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife: who rule well their children and their own houses. For they that have ministered well, shall purchase to themselves a good degree, and much confidence in the faith which is in Jesus Christ.

These things I write to thee, hoping that I shall come to thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And evidently great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, appeared unto angels, hath been preached unto the Gentiles, is believed in the world, is taken up in glory. Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils. Read whole post......

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany. The Roman Breviary, part 3: Winter, Burns Oates&Washbourne Ltd, London 1936

Matins, Lesson IV-VI
Sermon 8 of St. Augustine, Bishop, on the words of the Apostle,

This is a saying made for man, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Listen to the Gospel: The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. If man had not been lost, the Son of man would not have come. Man, then, was lost, God came, being made man, and man was found. Man had perished by his own free-will; God made man came by the grace which was to set man free.

Do you ask, how free-will can do evil? Call to mind a sinner. Do you ask what God made man can do to help him? Consider that in him is the grace that sets man free. What the will of man can do when, ruled by pride, it tries to avoid evil without the help of God, could never be better or more clearly shown that in the first man. Behold, the first man perished, and where would he have been if the second man had not come? Because he who was lost was a man, therefore he who came to save him was made man; that was why we said it was a saying made for man.

And neither does the sweetness of grace and the generosity of God's almightness anywhere appear so clearly as in the man Christ Jesus, mediator between God and man. For what do we say, my brethren? I speak to those brought up in the Catholic faith, or to those who have won to Catholic peace. We know and we hold that the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, inasmuch as he was man, was of the same nature as we are. For our flesh is not of another nature than his soul. He took upon himself this nature which he had determined to save.

Lessons VII-IX
Homily of St Augustine, Bishop
Book of questions on the Gospel of Matthew, cap.II, tom.4

When they who were set over the Church grew careless, or since the Apostles have slept the sleep of death, the devil came, and oversowed those whom the Lord designates as wicked children. But, ye ask, are these heretics, or Catholics living bad lives? For even heretics might be called the children of the wicked one, who, although they have sprung up from the seed of the Gospel, and have been begotten in the name of Christ, have turned aside to false doctrines through listening to erroneous opinions.

When it is said that they were sown among the wheat, it would seem that only those are meant who are of the same communion with us. Yet since the Lord interpreted this field as signifying, not the Church, but the world, the cockle may well be understood to mean heretics, because in this world they are mingled with the good, not in the fellowship of the one Church, or of the one faith, but only as sharing the name of Christian. But the wicked who are of the same faith are to be considered as straw rather than cockle; for the straw grows up together with the wheat and has one common root.

By the net in which were gathered together fish both bad and good, bad Catholics may reasonably be understood. For, on the one hand, the sea is a more fitting symbol of the world; and, on the other hand, the net seems to point to the communion of one faith, or of one Church. The difference between heretics and bad Catholics is, that the former believe false doctrine, while the latter, though believing aright, do not live according to to their faith.

Blessing for the lesson 9:
May our sins be blotted out by the words of the gospel.
R. Amen. Read whole post......

St Agatha

Catholic Encyclopedia

One of the most highly venerated virgin martyrs of Christian antiquity, put to death for her steadfast profession of faith in Catania, Sicily. Although it is uncertain in which persecution this took place, we may accept, as probably based on ancient tradition, the evidence of her legendary life, composed at a later date, to the effect that her martyrdom occurred during the persecution of Decius (250-253).

Historic certitude attaches merely to the fact of her martyrdom and the public veneration paid her in the Church since primitive times. In the so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum (ed. De Rossi and Duchesne, in Acta SS., Nov. II, 17) and in the ancient Martyrologium Carthaginiense dating from the fifth or sixth century (Ruinart, Acta Sincera, Ratisbon, 1859, 634), the name of St. Agatha is recorded on 5 February. In the sixth century Venantius Fortunatus mentions her in his poem on virginity as one of the celebrated Christian virgins and martyrs (Carm., VIII, 4, De Virginitate: Illic Euphemia pariter quoque plaudit Agathe Et Justina simul consociante Thecla. etc.). Among the poems of Pope Damasus published by Merenda and others is a hymn to St. Agatha (P.L., XIII, 403 sqq.; Ihm, Damasi Epigrammata, 75, Leipzig, 1895). However, this poem is not the work of Damasus but the product of an unknown author at a later period, and was evidently meant for the liturgical celebration of the Saint's feast. Its content is drawn from the legend of St. Agatha, and the poem is marked by end-rhyme. From a letter of Pope Gelasius (492-496) to a certain Bishop Victor (Thiel. Epist. Roman. Pont., 495) we learn of a Basilica of St. Agatha in fundo Caclano, e.g., on the estate of that name. The letters of Gregory I make mention of St. Agatha at Rome, in the Subura, with which a diaconia or deaconry was connected (Epp., IV, 19; P.L., LXXVII, 688). It was in existence as early as the fifth century, for in the latter half of that century Rieimer enriched it with a mosaic. This same church was given the Arian Goths by Rieimer and was restored to Catholic worship by Pope Gregory I (590-604).

Although the martyrdom of St. Agatha is thus authenticated, and her veneration as a saint had even in antiquity spread beyond her native place, we still possess no reliable information concerning the details of her glorious death. It is true that we have the Acts of her martyrdom in two versions, Latin and Greek, the latter deviating from the former (Acta SS., I, Feb., 595 sqq.). Neither of these recensions, however, can lay any claim to historical credibility, and neither gives the necessary internal evidence that the information it contains rests, even in the more important details, upon genuine tradition. If there is a kernel of historical truth in the narrative, it has not as yet been possible to sift it out from the later embellishments. In their present form the Latin Acts are not older than the sixth century. According to them Agatha, daughter of a distinguished family and remarkable for her beauty of person, was persecuted by the Senator Quintianus with avowals of love. As his proposals were resolutely spurned by the pious Christian virgin, he committed her to the charge of an evil woman, whose seductive arts, however, were baffled by Agatha's unswerving firmness in the Christian faith. Quintianus then had her subjected to various cruel tortures. Especially inhuman seemed his order to have her breasts cut off, a detail which furnished to the Christian medieval iconography the peculiar characteristic of Agatha. But the holy virgin was consoled by a vision of St. Peter, who miraculously healed her. Eventually she succumbed to the repeated cruelties practised on her. As already stated, these details, in so far as they are based on the Acts, have no claim to historical credibility. Allard also characterizes the Acts as the work of a later author who was more concerned with writing an edifying narrative, abounding in miracles, than in transmitting historical traditions.

Both Catania and Palermo claim the honour of being Agatha's birthplace. Her feast is kept on 5 February; her office in the Roman Breviary is drawn in part from the Latin Acts. Catania honours St. Agatha as her patron saint, and throughout the region around Mt. Etna she is invoked against the eruptions of the volcano, as elsewhere against fire and lightning. In some places bread and water are blessed during Mass on her feast after the Consecration, and called Agatha bread. Read whole post......

Saturday - Day of Our Lady

Mary's charity towards Her neighbour" chapter from the book "The Glories of Mary" by St Alphonsus de Liquori

Love toward God and love towards our neighbour are commanded by the same precept: :And this commandment we have from God,that he who loveth God love also his brother". Saint Thomas says that the reason for this is, that he who loves God loves all that God loves. Saint Catherine of Genoa one day said, 'Lord, Thou willest that I should love my neighbour, and I can love none but Thee'. God answered her in these words: 'All who love Me love, what I love'. But as there never was, and never will be, any one who loved God as much as Mary loved Him, so there never was, and never will be, any one who loved her neighbour as much as she did. Father Cornelius a Lepide, on these words of Canticles, "King Solomon hath made him a litter of the wood of Libanus...the midst he covered with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem", says, that 'this litter was Mary's womb, in which the Incarnate Word dwelt, filling it with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem; for Christ, who is love itself, inspired the Blessed Virgin with charity in its highest degree, that she might succour all who had recourse to her.' So great was Mary's charity when on earth, that she succoured the needy without even being asked; as was the case at the marriage-feast of Cana, when told her Son that family's distress;"They have no wine," and asked Him to work a miracle. O, with what speed did she fly when there was question of relieving her neighbour! When she went to the house of Elizabeth to fulfil an office of charity, "she went into the the hill-country with haste". She could not, however, more fully display the greatness of her charity than she did in the offering which she made of her Son to daeth for our salvation. On this subject Saint Bonaventure says, ''Mary so loved the world as to give her beloved only-begotten Son". Hence Saint Anselm exclaims,'O blessed amongst woman, the purity surpasses that of the angels, and thy compassion that of the Saints!' Nor has this love of Mary for us,' says Saint Bonaventure, 'diminished now that she is in heaven, but it has increased; for now she better sees the miseries of men.' And therefore the Saint goes on to say: 'Great was the mercy of Mary towards the wretched when she was still in the exile on earth; but far greater is it now that she reigns in heaven.' Saint Agnes assured Saint Bridget that 'there was no one who prayed without receiving graces through the charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.' Unfortunate, indeed, should we be, did not Mary intercede for us! Jesus Himself, addressing the same Saint, said, 'Were it not for the prayers of My Mother, there would be no hope of mercy.'
Blessed is he, says the Divine Mother, who listens to my instructions, pays attention to my charity, and , in imitation of me, exercises it himself towards others: 'Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors.' Saint Gregory Nazianzen assures us that 'there is nothing by which we can with greater certainty gain the affection of Mary than by charity towards our neighbour.' Therefore, as God exhorts us, saying, "Be you merciful, as your Father also is merciful." It is certain that our charity towards our neighbour will be measure of that which God and Mary will show us: "Give, and it shall be given to you. For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." Saint Methodius used to say, 'Give to the poor, and receive paradise.' For the apostle writes, that charity towards our neighbour renders us happy in this world and in the next: "But piety is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." Saint John Chrysostom, on the words of Proverbs," that hath mercy on the poor lendeth to the Lord." makes a remark to the same effect, saying, 'He who assists the needy makes God his debtor.' O Mary of Mercy, thou art full of charity for all; forget not my miseries; thou seest them full well. Recommend me to God, who denies thee nothing. Obtain me the grace to imitate thee in holy charity, as well towards God as towards my neighbour. Amen. Read whole post......

Forth Week after Epiphany. "Spiritual Canticle" by St John of the Cross, translated and edited by E.Allison Peers, Image Books, 1961
Stanza II part 2

IF PERCHANCE YE SEE...
4. This is as much as to say: If my good fortune and happiness are such that ye reach His presence so that He sees you and hears you. Here it is to be observed that, although it is true that God knows and understands all things, and sees and observes even the least of the thoughts of the soul, yet He is said to see our necessities, or to hear them, when He relieves them or fulfills them; for not all necessities or all petitions reach such a point that God hears them in order to fulfill them, until in His eyes the number of them is sufficient and there has arrived the proper time and season to grant them or relieve them. And then He is said to see them or to hear them, as may be seen in the Book of Exodus, where, after the four hundred years during which the children of Israel had been afflicted in the bondage of Egypt, God said to Moses: I have seen the affliction of My people and have heard their cry; and I am come down to deliver them. Yet He had ever seen it, but he said
that He had seen it only when He willed to fulfil their request by His deed. Even so said Saint Gabriel to Zacharias: Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard. That is, He now granted him the son for which he had been begging Him many years; yet He had ever heard him. And thus it is to be understood by every soul that, albeit God may not at once hearken to its necessity and prayer, yet it follows not that, if they merit it, He will not hearken to its necessity and prayer, yet follows not that, if they merit it, He will not hearken to them when the time is opportune and due. For, as David says, he is a helper in due time and in tribulations. This, then, is signified here by the soul that says, 'If perchance ye see...': If by my good fortune the time and season has arrived wherein my desires and petitions have reached the point at which he sees them to fulfil them for me.
...HIM THAT I MUST LOVE,
5. That is to say: more than all things; speaking ideally, when the soul loves Him more than all things is when naught that presents itself to hear impedes her from doing and suffering, whatsoever it be, for His sake. to Him, then, Whom she most loves, she sends her desires as messengers with the petition of her needs and afflictions, saying:

TELL YE HIM THAT I LANGUISH, SUFFER AND DIE.
6. Three kinds of need the soul represents here, to wit: languor, suffering and death; for the soul that loves truly suffers ordinarily from feeling the absence of God in these three ways aforesaid, according to the three faculties of the soul, which are understanding, will and memory. She languishes in the understanding, because she sees not God, Who is the health of the understanding. She suffers as to the will because she lacks the possession of God, Who is the rest, refreshments and delight of the will. She dies as to the memory, because, remembering that she lacks all the blessings of the understandings, which are the sight of God, and all the delights of the will, which are the sight of God, and all the delights of the will, which are the possession of Him, and that it is likewise very possible to be deprived of Him for ever, she suffers at this memory as it were death.
7. These three needs Jeremias likewise represented to God, saying: Remember my poverty, the wormwood and the gall. The poverty refers to the understanding, because to it belong the riches of the wisdom of God, wherein, as Saint Paul says, are hid all the treasures of God. The wormwood, which is a herb most bitter, refers to the will, for to this faculty belongs the sweetness of the possession of God: lacking which, the soul is left with bitterness, even as the Angel said to Saint John in the Apocalypse, in these words: Take the book and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter - the belly being taken to mean the will. The gall refers to the memory, and signifies the death of the soul, even as Moses writes in Deuteronomy, when he speaks of the damned, saying: Their wine will be the gall of dragons and the venom of asps, which is incurable. This signifies there the lack of God, which is the death of the soul; and these three needs and affliction are founded upon the three theological virtues- faith, charity and hope - which relate to the three faculties aforementioned: understanding, will and memory.
8. And it is to be observed that in the line aforementioned the soul does no more than represent her need and affliction to the Beloved. For one that loves discretely has no care to beg for that which he lacks and desires, but only shows forth his need, so that the Beloved may do that which seems good to Him. As when the Blessed Virgin spake to the beloved Son at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, not begging Him directly for wine, but saying: "They have no wine." Or as when the sisters of Lazarus sent to Him, not to say that He should heal their brother, but to tell Him to see how he whom He loved was sick. And the reason for which it is better for the lover to show forth his need to the Beloved than to beg Him to fulfil it is threefold. First, because the Lord knows our necessities better than we ourselves; second, because the Beloved has the greater compassion when He beholds the necessity of His lover and is moved when He sees his resignation; third, because the soul is on surer ground with respect to self-love and love of possession if she represents her need than if she begs Him for that whereof she believes herself to have need. It is precisely this that the soul does in this present line, where she represents her three necessities. For to say: "Tell ye Him that I languish, suffer and die" is, as it were, to say: Since I languish, and He alone is my health, may He give me health, may he give me my rest. Since I die, and He alone is my life, may He give me my life. Read whole post......

Purification of the Blessed Virgin
'The Purification: its mystery' chapter from "The Liturgical year" - vol.3, Christmas Book II, by Dom Prosper Gueranger OSB, Jubilee 2000 edition.

The Forty Days of Mary's Purification are now completed, and she must go up to the Temple, there to offer to God her Child Jesus. Before following the Son and his Mother in this mysterious journey, let us spent our last few moments at Bethlehem, in lovingly pondering over the mysteries at which we are going to assist. The Law commanded that a woman who had given birth to a son should not approach the Tabernacle for the term of forty days; after which time she was to offer a sacrifice for her purification...By another ordinance of the Law, every first-born son was to be considered as belonging to God, and was to be redeemed by five sicles, each sicle weighing, according to the standard of the Temple, twenty obols. Mary was a Daughter of Israel - she had given birth to Jesus - he was her First-born Son. Could such a Mother and such a Son be included in the laws we have just quoted? Was it becoming that Mary should observe them?
If she considered the spirit of these legal enactments, and why God required the ceremony of Purification, it was evident that she was not bound to them. They for whom these laws had been made were espoused to men; Mary was the chaste Spouse of the Holy Ghost, a Virgin in conceiving and a Virgin in giving birth to her Son; her purity had ever been spotless as that of the Angels; but it received an incalculable increase by her carrying the God of all sanctity in her womb, and bringing him into this world. Moreover, when she reflected upon her Child being the Creator and Sovereign Lord of all things, how could she suppose that he was to be submitted to the humiliation of being ransomed as a slave, whose life and person are not his own?
And yet the Holy Spirit revealed to Mary that she must comply with both these law. She, the holy Mother of God, must go to the Temple like other Hebrew mothers, as though she had lost something which needed restoring by a legal sacrifice. He that is the Son of God and Son of Man must be treated in all things as though he were the poor Jewish boy. Mary adores the will of God, and embraces it with her whole heart.... The Divine Will was dear to Mary in this as in every circumstances of her life. The Holy Virgin knew that by seeking this external rite of Purification, she was in no wise risking the honour of her Child, or failing in the respect due to her own Virginity. She was in the Temple of Jerusalem what she was in the house of Nazareth, when she received the Archangel's visit; she was the Handmaid of the Lord. She obeyed the Law because she seemed to come under the Law. Her God and her Son submitted to the ransom as humbly as the poorest Hebrew would have to do; he had already obeyed the edict of the emperor Augustus in the general census; he was to be obedient even unto death, even to the death of the Cross. The Mother and the Child both humbled themselves in the Purification, and man's pride received, on that day, one of the greatest lessons ever given it.... At length the Holy family enter Jerusalem. The name of this holy City signifies Vision of Peace; and Jesus comes to bring her Peace. Let us consider the names of the three places in which Redeemer began, continued and ended his life on earth. He is conceived at Nazareth, which signifies a Flower; and Jesus is, as he tells us in the Canticle, the Flower of the Field and the Lily of the Valley (Cant, II,1), by whose fragrance we are refreshed. He is born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread; for he is the nourishment of our souls. He dies on the Cross in Jerusalem, and, by His Blood, he restores peace between heaven and earth, peace between men, peace within our own souls; and, on this day of his Mother's Purification, we shall find him giving us the pledge of this peace..... The Emmanuel has left Bethlehem; he has come among the people; he is about to take possession of his Temple, and the mere fact of his entering it will at once give it a glory, which is far above that of its predecessor. He will often visit it during his mortal life, but his coming to it today, carried as he is in Mary's arms, is enough for the accomplishment of the promise, and all the shadows and figures of the Temple at once pale before the rays of the Sun of the Truth and Justice. But this great event could not be accomplished without a prodigy being wrought by the Eternal God as a welcome to His Son.... this time it is the Holy Ghost himself who sends a witness to the Infant, now in the great Temple. There was then living in Jerusalem an old man whose life was wellnigh spent. He was a Man of desires (Dan X 11) and his name was Simeon; his heart had longed unceasingly for the Messaias, and at last his hope was recompensed. The Holy Ghost has revealed to Him that he should not see death without first seeing the rising of the Divine Light. As Mary and Joseph were ascending the steps of the Temple, to take Jesus to the altar, Simeon felt within himself the strong impulse of the Spirit of God: he leaves his house, and walks toward the Temple; the ardour of his desires makes him forget the feebleness of age. He reaches the porch of God's House, and there, amids the many mothers who had come to present their children, his inspired gaze recognizes the Virgin of whom he had so often read in Isaias, and he presses through the crowd to the Child she is holding in her arms. Mary, guided by the same Divine Spirit, welcomes the saintly old man, and puts into his trembling arms the dear object of her love, the salvation of the world. Happy Simeon! figure of the ancient world, grown old in its expectation, and near its end.....He cannot keep silence; he must sing a Canticle; he must do as Shepherds and Magi had done, he must give testimony: Now, says he, now, O Lord, thou dost dismiss thy servant in Peace, because my eyes have seen thy Salvation, which thou has prepared - a Light that is to enlighten the Gentiles, and give glory to thy people Israel.
Immediately there comes, attracted to the spot by the same Holy Spirit, the holy Anna, Phanuel's daughter, noted for her piety, and venerated by the people on account of her great age. Simeon and Anna, the representatives of the Old Testament, unite their voices, and celebrate the happy coming of the Child who is to renew the face of the earth; they give praise to the mercy of Jehovah, who in this place , in this second Temple, gives peace to the world, as the prophet Aggeus had foretold. This was the Peace so long looked forward to by Simeon, and now in this Peace will he sleep...Anna has some years still to pass on earth; as the Evangelist tells us, she has to go and announce the fulfilment of the promises to such of the Jews as were spiritually minded, and looked for the Redemption of Israel (St Luke II,38). The divine seed is sown; the Shepherds and the Magi, Simeon and Anna, have all been its sowers; it will spring up in due time; and when our Jesus has spent his thirty years of hidden life in Nazareth, and shall come for the harvest-time, he will say to his Disciples: Lift up your eyes, and see the countries, for they are white already for the harvest: pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he send labourers into the harvest (St Luke X,2). Simeon gives back to Mary the Child she is going to offer to the Lord. The two doves are presented to the priest, who sacrifices the on the Altar; the price for the ransom is paid; the whole law is satisfied; and after having paid her homage to her creator in this sacred place, where she spent her early years, Mary, with Jesus pressed to her bossom, and her faithful Joseph by her side, leaves the Temple. Such is the mystery of this fortieth day, which closes, by this admirable feast of the Purification, the holy season of Christmas. Several learned writers, among whom we may mention Henschenius and Pope Benedict XIV, are of opinion that this Solemnity was instituted by the Apostles themselves. This much is certain, that it was a long-established feast even in the fifth century....The honour paid thus by the Church to the Mother tends in reality to the greater glory of her Divine Son, for He is the Author and the End of all those prerogatives which we revere and honour in Mary. Read whole post......

Tuesday - Fourth Week after Epiphany
"Spiritual Canticle" - St. John of the Cross. Translated and edited by E.Allison Peers, Image Books, 1961
Stanza II, part 1
Exposition.
In this stanza the soul seeks to make use of intercession and intermediaries with her Beloved, begging them to tell Him of her pain and affliction; for it is a characteristic of the lover, when she cannot commune with her Beloved because of His absence, to do so the best means that she may. And so at this point the soul would fain use her desires, affections and sighs as messengers, who are also able to make known the secrets of her heart. And thus she says:

SHEPHERDS, YE THAT GO
2. Calling the affections and desires shepherds, because they feed soul on spiritual good things. For shepherds signifies 'one who feeds' and by their means God communicates Himself to her (which without them He does not). And she says: 'Ye that go'. That is to say, Ye that go forth from pure love; because they go not all to God, but those only that go forth from faithful love.

YONDER, THROUGH THE SHEEPSCOTES, TO THE HILL,
3. By the 'sheepscotes' she means the choirs of the angels, by whose ministry, from choir to choir, our sighs and prayers travel to God; Whom she calls 'the hill', because the hill is high, and, even so, God is the greatest of all heights; and because in God, as on the hill, are spied out and seen all things. To Him go our prayers, which the angels offer Him, as we have said; for it is they who offer Him our prayers and desires, according as the angel said to holy Tobias, in these words: When thou didst pray with tears and did bury the dead, I offered thy prayer unto the Lord. We can likewise understand by these shepherds of whom the soul here speaks the angels themselves, for not only do they bear our messages to God but they also bring God's messages to our souls, feeding our souls, like good shepherds, with sweet inspirations and communications from God, which He also creates by means of them. And they protect us from the wolves, who are the evil spirits, and defend us from them like good shepherds. Read whole post......