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Thoughts for Quinquagesima Sunday

2/28/2014

 
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Use and Abuse of Grace

“Jesus of Nazareth was passing by” (Luke, 18:37)


Today’s Gospel relates in simple and touching language how Our Lord miraculously cured a blind man who found out from the noise and excitement that “Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.”The blind man received this great favour because he took advantage of an opportunity when it was given him. If he had neglected to ask Our Lord for the restoration of his sight at the very moment when Christ was near at hand, he would probably have never obtained this great favour.In a similar way we must take advantage of the inspirations of God’s grace when they are given us. If we neglect a grace, if we spurn God’s invitation to perform some good deed, to add to our spiritual perfection, to get rid of a bad habit, etc., then we may have lost the opportunity forever. Whenever we receive a grace we can say that Jesus is passing by, eager to give us something even more beneficial than the gift of bodily sight. We should imitate the poor blind man when such an opportunity comes to us and cry out, “Jesus have mercy on me.”

Next Wednesday the Catholic Church begins the special period of prayer and penance called Lent. If we enter into the spirit of this holy season, we can have the assurance that many graces will be bestowed on us. Everyone of us needs some spiritual favours. Perhaps there are some here this morning who are in mortal sin, the death of the soul. Their condition is far more pitiable than that of the blind man. In the course of Lent Our Lord will surely pass near to such poor persons,giving them the grace to realise how unfortunate they really are, even though they may be very fortunate in the eyes of the world. They should take advantage of His nearness to seek from Him the grace of repentance, the grace to make a good confession and to return to the friendship of God.We do not know when the last opportunity of using God’s graces will be given us.

Many of those who are enjoying good health today and seem to have many years of life before them will begin their last Lent on earth next Wednesday. It would indeed be tragic if any of these persons paid no heed to the precious graces, which Our Lord is prepared to give them. And since none of us knows whether or not he or she will be of this number, each of us should be most careful not to neglect the graces that Our Lord will give us in the course of the Holy season of Lent.

Practical Application

Resolve during this Lent to do penance, at least by observing the laws of fast, which are now so easy. Resolve also to practice some special devotion regularly, particularly the daily rosary

Eleison Comments CCCXLVI (346)

2/28/2014

 
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TRUTH FIRST

There must be many objections to the argument of recent issues of these “Comments” that, divine truth being prior to human teachers, then the fallibility of Popes need not concern us all that much because the true Faith is behind, beyond and above them. But here is a classic objection: the Truth in itself may be above them, but to us human beings it only comes through them – “faith is by hearing” (Rom.X, 17). Thus Our Lord entrusted to Peter (i.e. the Popes) the task of confirming his brethren in the faith (Lk.XXII, 31-32). So to us Catholics the teachers are prior to the Truth which we cannot receive without them. Moreover the Holy Ghost guides them (Jn.XVI, 13), so how can I possibly tell if or when he is not doing so ?

Also in Scripture lies the answer. St. Paul writes to a flock which he has instructed in the Faith: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” And the point is so important that St Paul immediately repeats it: “As we said before, so now I say again: If anyone preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema” (Gal.I, 8-9)

But, a Galatian might have objected, why should we believe your gospel on your first visit to Galatia and not an eventually different one on your second ? St. Paul immediately gives a first reason: “ The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal.I, 11-12). And St Paul confirms this by narrating how little contact he had with those who might have taught him, the other Apostles, before he began preaching (I, 15-19), a fact obviously verifiable by them, and he swears to the Galatians that he is not lying (I, 20). A second reason he gives a little later, which is the miracles and experience of the Holy Spirit (III, 2-5) that the Galatians themselves had witnessed as the direct result of the preaching of Paul’s first visit.

Thus Paul proves that God both taught him, and confirmed for the Galatians, the gospel of that first visit, and the contradiction between it and any different gospel the Galatians would be not only able but also obliged to discern for themselves, if they wished to save their souls. And no matter if (I,8) the preacher of the different gospel were an angel or Paul himself – or a Pope ! – the Galatians would still have the absolute duty to stay with Paul’s first gospel. The truth that had been set before them (III,1) the Galatians had recognized and accepted it (III, 3), just as one recognizes that 2 and 2 are 4, so it would have priority over any teacher eventually contradicting it, whatever authority to teach he might appear to have (I,9).

Thus Archbishop Lefebvre used to say that for the 19 centuries between St Paul and Vatican II the Church had preached exactly the same gospel, coming from God and ever and again confirmed by him. That gospel is, as revealed by God, Revelation; as handed down by churchmen, Tradition; as taught with authority by the Church, its Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium. Between that gospel and Vatican II the contradiction is obvious, so we must accept and believe Tradition, if we wish to save our souls, whatever the apparent authorities of the Church may say to the contrary. So help us God. How then can the Archbishop’s own Society of St Pius X be officially seeking reconciliation with the authorities of Vatican II ?

Kyrie eleison.

Galatians I, 8-9 is a classic text to prove the priority of truth over authority, i.e. of Catholic Tradition over today’s Rome.


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February 28th - St Romanus

2/28/2014

 
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St. Romanus was born in about the year 390 in upper Bugey. At the age of 35 he undertook to live as a hermit, in prayer and asceticism, in the region of Condat in the Jura mountains of southeastern France. His younger brother Lupicinus followed him there. They became leaders of a community of monks which included St. Eugendus. Romanus and Lupicinus founded several monasteries. These included Condat Abbey, which was the nucleus of the later town of S.-Claude, Jura), Lauconne (later S.-Lupicin, as Lupicinus was buried there), La Balme (Beaume) (later S.-Romain-de-Roche), where Romanus was buried, and Romainmôtier (Romani monasterium) in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. Romanus was ordained a priest by St. Hilary of Arles in 444. He reposed in the grace of Christ the God-Man, in about the year 460. Holy Venerable Romanus, pray to God for us!

Saint for Today - St Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

2/27/2014

 
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Gabriel, born at Assisi in Umbria of a respectable family, and called Francis in memory of his seraphic fellow-townsman, shewed from boyhood an excellent disposition of soul.  As a youth, when studying letters at Spoleto, he seemed for a time to be allured by the empty beauty and pomp of the world.  But by the gift of the merciful God, who had already called him to the perfection of a Christian life when he had fallen sick, he began to tire of the vanity of the world, and to desire immortal treasures alone.  But to quicken his obedience to the call of God, it happened that as he saw the celebrated Image of the Blessed Virgin being carried with solemn pomp outside the precincts of the church of Spoleto, he experienced the flame of divine love, and at the same time decided to enter the Institute of the Clerks of the Passion of Jesus.  Therefore, after overcoming no slight difficulties, he joyfully donned the somber habit in the secluded place of Morrovalle, and chose to be called Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, to recall forever the memory of her joys and griefs.

In the novitiate, day by day he became conspicuous for regular observance and for the exercise of all the virtues, and in a short time he came to be considered a pattern of perfect holiness, not only by his companions and his seniors, but also beyond the confines of the monastery; he became a sweet odour in Christ in every place.  An assiduous devotee of the Lord's Passion, he spent days and nights meditating upon it.  He was drawn by unbelievable zeal towards the Holy Eucharist, a memorial of that Passion; and when he nourished himself with it, he burned with seraphic ardour.  There was nothing more noticeable than his filial piety towards the great Mother of God.  He was accustomed to pay her honour for every type of devotion, but especially to contemplate her stricken and afflicted by the sufferings of Jesus, with such sorrow that he shed floods of tears.  The sorrowful Virgin was, as it were, the whole reason of his being, and the teacher of the holiness that he had acquired.  As a result all his associates shared the one opinion that this servant of God had been inspired from on high so that the cult of St. Mary of Sorrows through his example might receive a great increase.

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Among other virtues, he especially loved Christian humility and obedience; for he considered himself the least of all.  He therefore strove eagerly to do all the most menial work of the house, and he most diligently performed, not only the direct commands, but even the unexpressed wishes of his superiors.  Curbing his senses, and accustoming himself to a life of austerity, he retained unfaded the flower of his virginity, and completely crucified to the world, he lived to God alone, enjoying an intimate familiarity with his Lord.  And so, at Isola in the Abruzzi, filling the short span of his life with so many noble virtues, consumed by the fire of charity rather than by disease, and refreshed by the aid of the Mother of God, his soul flew to heaven in a most peaceful journey in the year 1862, at the age of twenty-four.  Then, as he had been made illustrious by God through miracles, Pope Pius X added him to the number of the Blessed in heaven.  Likewise, the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XV in 1920, two hundred years after the foundation of the Institute of the Passion, on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, decreed the honours of the Saints to the blessed youth; and Pius XI extended his Office and Mass to the Universal Church.

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The body of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

February 26th - St. Alexander

2/26/2014

 
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The majority of his ministry was dedicated to fighting against the Arian heresy. Arius, a priest of Alexandria, claimed Jesus was not truly God and that there was a time when the Son, the second person of the Trinity, did not exist.

When Achillas
bishop of Alexandria died in 313, Alexander was elected, and after that Arius threw off all disguise. Alexander was particularly obnoxious to him, although so tolerant at first of the errors of Arius that the clergy nearly revolted. Finally the heresy was condemned in a council held in Alexandria, and later on, as is well known, in the general Council of Nicaea, whose Acts Alexander is credited with having drawn up. An additional merit of this great man is that during his priesthood he passed through the bloody persecutions of Galerius, Maximinus, and others. It was while his predecessor Peter was in prison, waiting for martyrdom, that he and Achillas succeeded in reaching the pontiff, and interceded for the reinstatement of Arius, which Peter absolutely refused declaring that Arius was doomed to perdition. The refusal evidently had little effect, for when Achillas succeeded Peter, Arius was made a priest; and when in turn Alexander came to the see, the heretic was still tolerated.

It is worth recording that the great Athanasius succeeded Alexander, the dying pontiff compelling the future doctor of the Church to accept the post. Alexander is described as "a man held in the highest honour by the people and clergy, magnificent, liberal, eloquent, just, a lover of God and man, devoted to the poor, good and sweet to all, so mortified that he never broke his fast while the sun was in the heavens."

Alexander's epistle on the Arian heresy has survived and remains an important part of ecclesiastical literature.
Alexander was a champion of orthodox Catholic teaching.

He died in Alexandria two years after his return from the council.

St. Alexander was also famous for his charity to the poor and his doctrine on life.


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St Athanasius. As deacon, he accompanied Alexander of Alexandria to the First Council of Nicea in 325, which produced the Nicene Creed and anathematized Arius and his followers.

February 25th - St Walburga

2/25/2014

 
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According to tradition, she was born in Devon around 710, the daughter of St Richard, often referred to as ‘King’ of Wessex, and ‘Queen’ Wuna. It was a family of saints, a pedigree that would serve her well in the future: her uncle was the great St Boniface (Archbishop of Mainz) and her brothers were St Winnebald and St Willibald, who would later become Abbot of Heidenheim and Bishop of Eichstätt respectively.

St Walburga received a solidly Christian upbringing. The family said their daily prayers before a wooden cross that was erected on their land and, in 720, she entered the double monastery at Wimborne (Dorset). Under the direction of St Tatta, the abbey had gained a reputation of learning and holiness, and it would prepare Walburga for her missionary years in Germany. Around the same time, her father and two brothers embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land. However, her father developed a fever and died at Lucca, where he is venerated to this day as ‘St Richard the Pilgrim’ at the church of San Frediano. The brothers went on to Rome, where they split up – Winnebald joined a Benedictine monastery and Willibald travelled to the Holy Land.
During this period St Boniface was busy consolidating the Church in Germany, establishing monasteries and bishoprics. His collaborators included, by the 740s, SS Winnebald and Willibald. It is perhaps no surprise that in 750 St Walburga travelled to Germany to assist her kinsmen in this great work. It is said that, as she crossed the Channel, a terrible storm arose, which was stopped only by Walburga’s prayers - the miracle was traditionally commemorated at Eichstätt on 4th August. She may have stayed in Antwerp, where she is venerated as patroness, before going to Mainz to meet her uncle. She then settled down at Tauberbischofsheim, under St Lioba, a relative and another member of the Wimborne community, who had moved to Germany in 748.
It must have been a great joy to be near her brothers, after many years of separation, and Walburga eventually moved to Heidenheim, where Winnebald had founded a double monastery, based on the English model (as found at Wimborne). After his death in 761, Walburga’s surviving brother, Willibald, now bishop of Eichstätt, appointed her Abbess, with government over both the monks and nuns. She was also skilled in medicine and did much to look after the sick and dying.The legend contains various miracles worked during her life. One night, one of the monks refused to accompany the saint to her cell at night with a lit candle. Shortly afterwards, the nuns found the abbey illuminated by a mysterious light. The saint cried out: ‘O Lord, as a humble maid who committed my life to you since my youth, I thank you for granting this grace. You have honoured me in my unworthiness with the comfort of your light. This sign gives courage to the souls of your handmaids who are dependent on me. And you have driven out the darkness and our fear through the bright light of your mercy.’

When St Walburga died on 25th February 779, she was buried at Heidenheim. However, the double monastery did not survive long and under Willibald’s successor, Bishop Gerhoh, it was occupied by canons. Devotion to Walburga waned to such an extent that in 870, as workmen were restoring the church, the saint’s tomb was desecrated. The outraged saint appeared to the bishop, Otgar, complaining that her remains were being trampled upon ‘irreverently by the dirty feet of the builders.’ Shortly afterwards, the north wall of the church collapsed, which was widely interpreted as a sign from heaven. The body of Walburga was quickly exhumed and translated to Eichstätt on 21st September, and her cult was revived. A community of canonesses initially cared for the saint’s tomb, until a Benedictine Abbey of nuns was founded there in 1035, which survives to this day. During its long existence, the Abbey has founded many daughter-houses, including Minister Abbey in Kent and several across the Atlantic: Latrobe (Pennsylvania), Canyon City (Colorado), and Boulder (Colorado).

The fame of St Walburga rests in the miracles claimed after her death rather than the details of her life. When the tomb was opened in 893, ‘the workmen found the venerable bones of our holy mother Walburga moistened as if with a film of spring water, so that they were able, as it were, to press droplets of dew-like liquid from them.’ This ‘oil’ (Walburgisöl) has been constantly flowing from Walburga’s shrine, between the months of October and February, for over 1,200 years, stopping only, we are told, during a period when the town was under interdict and after blood was shed in the church by armed robbers. The fame of St Walburga rests in the miracles claimed after her death rather than the details of her life. When the tomb was opened in 893, ‘the workmen found the venerable bones of our holy mother Walburga moistened as if with a film of spring water, so that they were able, as it were, to press droplets of dew-like liquid from them.’ This ‘oil’ (Walburgisöl) has been constantly flowing from Walburga’s shrine, between the months of October and February, for over 1,200 years, stopping only, we are told, during a period when the town was under interdict and after blood was shed in the church by armed robbers.

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Saint for Today - St Mathias

2/24/2014

 
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Matthias was one of the first to follow our Saviour, and he was an eye-witness of all his divine actions up to the very day of the Ascension. He was one of the seventy-two Disciples; but our Lord had not conferred upon him the dignity of an Apostle. And yet, he was to have this great glory, for it was of him that David spoke, when he prophesied that another should take the Bishopric (Ps. cviii. 8; Acts, i. 16.) left vacant by the apostacy of Judas the Traitor. In the interval between Jesus' Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Apostolic College had to complete the mystic number fixed by our Lord Himself, so that there might be "The Twelve" on that solemn day, when the Church, filled with the Holy Ghost, was to manifest herself to the Synagogue. The lot fell on Matthias; he shared with his Brother-Apostles in the Jerusalem persecution, and, when the time came for the Ambassadors of Christ to separate, he set out for the countries allotted to him. Tradition tells us, that these were Cappadocia and the provinces bordering on the Caspian Sea.


The virtues, labours and sufferings of St. Matthias have not been handed down to us: this explains there being no proper Lessons on his Life, as there are for the Feasts of the rest of the Apostles. Clement of Alexandria records, in his Writings, several sayings of our holy Apostle. One of these is so very appropriate to the spirit of the present Season, that we consider it a duty to quote it. "It behoves us to combat the flesh, and make use of it, without pampering it by unlawful gratifications. As to the soul, we must develop her power by Faith and Knowledge." How profound is the teaching contained in these few words! Sin has deranged the order which the Creator had established. It gave the outward man such a tendency to grovel in things which degrade him, that the only means left us for the restoration of the Likeness and Image of God unto which we were created, is the forcibly subjecting the Body to the Spirit.


But the Spirit itself, that is, the Soul, was also impaired by Original Sin, and her inclinations were made prone to evil:-- what is to be her protection? Faith and Knowledge. Faith humbles her, and then exalts and rewards her; and the reward is Knowledge. Here we have a summary of what the Church teaches us during the two Seasons of Septuagesima and Lent. Let us thank the holy Apostle, in this his Feast, for leaving us such a lesson of spiritual wisdom and fortitude.

February 23rd - St Peter Damian

2/23/2014

 
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St. Peter Damian is one of those figures who seem specially raised up, like St. John Baptist, to recall men in a lax age from the error of their ways and to bring them back into the narrow path of virtue.

He was born at Ravenna and, having lost his parents when very young, he was left in the charge of a brother in whose house he was treated more like a slave than a kinsman. As soon as he was old enough he was sent to tend swine. Another brother, who was archpriest of Ravenna, took pity on the neglected lad and undertook to have him educated. Having found a father in this brother, Peter appears to have adopted from him the surname of Damian. Damian sent the boy to school, first at Faenza and then at Parma. He proved an apt pupil and became in time a master and a professor of great ability. He had early begun to inure himself to fasting, watching and prayer, and wore a hairshirt under his clothes to arm himself against the allurements of pleasure and the wiles of the devil. Not only did he give away much in alms, but he was seldom without some poor persons at his table, and took pleasure in serving them with his own hands. After a time Peter resolved to leave the world entirely and embrace a monastic life away from his own country.

While his mind was full of these thoughts, two religious of St. Benedict, belonging to Fonte Avellana of the Reform of St. Romuald, happened to call at the house where he lived, and he was able to learn much from them about their Rule and mode of life. This decided him and he joined their hermitage, which was then in the greatest repute. The hermits, who dwelt in pairs in separate cells, occupied themselves chiefly in prayer and reading, and lived a life of great austerity. Peter's watchings brought on a severe insomnia which was cured with difficulty, but which taught him to use more discretion. Acting upon this experience, he now devoted considerable time to Sacred studies, and became as well versed in the Holy Scriptures as he formerly had been in profane literature. By the unanimous consent of the hermits he was ordered to take upon himself the government of the Community in the event of the superior's death. Peter's extreme reluctance obliged the abbot to make it a matter of obedience. Accordingly after the abbot's decease about the year 1043, Peter assumed the direction of that holy family, which he governed with great wisdom and piety. He also founded five other hermitages in which he place Priors under his own general direction. His chief care was to foster in his disciples the spirit of solitude, charity, and humility. Many of them became great lights of the Church, including St. Dominic Loricatus, and St. John of Lodi, his successor in the priory of the Holy Cross, who wrote St. Peter's life and at the end of his days became Bishop of Gubbio.

For years Peter Damian was much employed in the service of the Church by successive Popes, and in 1057 Stephen IX prevailed upon him to quit his desert and made him Cardinal-bishop of Ostia. Peter constantly solicited Nicholas II to grant him leave to resign his bishopric and return to the solitude, but the Pope had always refused. His successor, Alexander II, out of affection for the holy man, was prevailed upon with difficulty to consent, but reserved the power to employ him in Church matters of importance, as he might hereafter have need of his help. The saint from that time considered himself dispensed not only from the responsibility of governing his See, but from the supervision of the various religious settlements he had controlled, and reduced himself to the condition of a simple monk. In this retirement he edified the Church by his humility, penance and compunction, and labored in his writings to enforce the observance of morality and discipline. His style is vehement, and his strictness appears in all his works - especially when he treats of the duties of the clergy and of monks. He severely rebuked the Bishop of Florence for playing a game of chess. That prelate acknowledged his amusement to be unworthy, and received the holy man's reproof meekly, submitting to do penance by reciting the psalter three times and by washing the feet of twelve poor men and giving them each a piece of money. Peter wrote a treatise to the Bishop of Besancon in which he inveighed against the custom by which the Canons of that Church sang the Divine Office seated in choir, though he allowed all to sit for the lessons. He recommended the use of the discipline as a substitute for long penitential fasts. He wrote most severely on the obligation of monks and protested against their wandering abroad, seeing that the spirit of retirement is an essential condition of their state. He complained bitterly of certain evasions whereby many palliated real infractions of their vow of poverty. He justly observed, "We can never restore primitive discipline when once it is decayed; and if we, by negligence, suffer any diminution in what remains established, future ages will never be able to repair the breach. Let us not draw upon ourselves so foul a reproach; but let us faithfully transmit to posterity the example of virtue which we have received from our forefathers."

St. Peter Damian fought simony with great vigor, and equally vigorously upheld clerical celibacy; and as he supported a severely ascetical, semi-eremitical life for monks, so he was an encourager of common life for the secular clergy. He was a man of great vehemence in all he said and did; it has been said of him that "his genius was to exhort and impel to the heroic, to praise striking achievements and to record edifying examples...an extraordinary force burns in all that he wrote".  In spite of his severity, St. Peter Damian could treat penitents with mildness and indulgence where charity and prudence required it. Henry IV, the young king of Germany, had married Bertha, daughter of Otto, Marquee of the Marches of Italy, but two years later he sought a divorce under the pretense that the marriage had never been consummated. By promises and threats he won over the archbishop of Mainz, who summoned a council for the purpose of sanctioning the annulment of the marriage; but Pope Alexander II forbade him to consent to such an injustice and chose Peter Damian as his legate to preside over the synod. The aged legate met the king and bishops at Frankfurt, laid before them the order and instructions of the Holy See, and entreated the king to pay due regard to the law of God, the Canons of the Church and his own reputation, and also to reflect seriously on the public scandal which so pernicious an example would give. The nobles likewise entreated the monarch not to stain his honor by conduct so unworthy. Henry, unable to resist this strong opposition, dropped his project of a divorce, but remained the same at heart, only hating the queen more bitterly than ever. Peter hastened back to his desert of Fonte Avellana.

Whatever austerities he prescribed for others, he practiced himself, remitting none of them even in his old age. He use to make wooden spoons and other little useful things that his hands might not be idle during the time he was not at work or at prayer. When Henry, Archbishop of Ravenna, had been excommunicated for grievous enormities, Peter was again sent by Alexander II as legate to settle the troubles. Upon his arrival at Ravenna he found that the prelate had just died, but he brought the accomplices of his crimes to a sense of their guilt and imposed on them suitable penance. This was Damian's last undertaking for the Church. As he was returning towards Rome he was arrested by an acute attack of fever in a monastery outside Faenza, and died on the eighth day of this illness, while the monks were reciting Matins round about him, on February 22, 1072. St. Peter was one of the chief forerunners of the Hildebrandine reform in the Church. His preaching was most eloquent and his writing voluminous, and he was declared a doctor of the Church in 1828. His feast day is February 23rd.

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Sexagesima Sunday

2/23/2014

 
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At that time: When much people were gathered together, and were come to Jesus out of every city, he spoke by a parable.  A sower went out to sow his seed.

Sermon
by St. Gregory the Pope

Dearly beloved brethren, the passage from the Holy Gospel which ye have just heard, needeth not so much that I should explain it, as that I should seek to enforce its lesson.  For what the Truth himself hath explained, human weakness may not presume to comment upon.  But there is, in that very explanation by the Lord, something which we ought to consider carefully.  For if we had told you that the seed is meant to signify the Word, ye might have doubted our understanding.  Or if we had said that the field is the world; and the birds, devils; and the thorns, riches; ye would perchance have denied the truth of our explanation.  Therefore the Lord himself vouchsafed to give this explanation; and that, not for this parable only, but that ye may know in what manner to interpret others, whereof he hath not given the meaning.

Beginning his explanation, the Lord saith that he speaketh in parable, that is he sheweth his language to be figurátive.  Hereby he giveth confidence to the preacher when, in spite of his incapacity, he must needs endeavour to lay open to you the hidden meaning of the Lord's words.  If I spake of myself, who would believe me when I say that riches are thorns?  Thorns prick, but riches lull to rest.  And yet riches are indeed thorns, for the anxiety they bring is a ceaseless pricking to the minds of their owners.  And, if they lead into sin, they are thorns which made us bleed with the wounds which they inflict.  But we understand from the Evangelist Matthew that in this place the Lord speaketh, not of riches themselves, but of the deceitfulness of riches.

Those riches are deceitful riches, which can be ours only for a little while; those riches are deceitful riches, which cannot relieve the poverty of our souls.  They only are the true riches, which made us rich in virtues.  If then, dearly beloved brethren, ye seek to be rich, earnestly desire the true riches.  If ye would be truly honourable, strive after the kingdom of heaven.  If ye love the bravery of titles, hasten to have your names written down at the Court of the heavenly King, where Angels are.  Take to heart the Lord's words which your ear heareth.  The food of the soul is the Word of God.  When the stomach is sick it throweth up again the food which is put into it; and so is the soul sick when a man heareth and digesteth not in his memory the Word of God.  For if any man cannot keep his food, that man's life is in desperate case.

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Feast for Today - The Chair of St. Peter at Antioch

2/21/2014

 
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At that time: When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?


Sermon
by St. Leo the Pope

The Lord asked his disciples who men said that he was, and their answers were human as long as they were the answers of human reason, unilluminated by Divine light.  At last, when the glimmerings of earthly conjecture were spoken, he whose Apostleship is the first in dignity, was the first to confess the Lord: And Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And Jesus answered and said unto him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.  That is to say, For this cause art thou blessed, because my Father himself hath taught thee; the opinions of men have not beguiled thee, the voices of angels have not taught thee, not flesh and blood, but he, whose Only-Begotten Son I am, hath revealed me unto thee.

Thus saith the Lord unto Simon Peter: And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter.  That is to say, Even as my Father hath revealed unto thee concerning me that I am God, even so now will I also reveal unto thee that thou art Peter; I am the sure Rock of defence, the Corner Stone, who make both one, I am the Foundation, besides which other can no man lay, and thou also art a rock, in my Strength made hard, and those things whereof I by right am Lord, into thy hand do I give them, that thou mayest bear rule over them, for me, and with me.  And upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  Upon this strength of thine, whereof I am the Strength, I will build mine eternal temple, and upon the truth of thy confession of me I will make to rise that my glorious Church  whose spires shall pierce to heaven.

Against this confession the gates of hell shall never prevail, neither shall the bands of death take hold upon it.  Thus saith he that is faithful and true.  And as this confession hath power to lift up to heaven them that make it, so is it able to thrust down to hell them that gainsay it.  Wherefore it is said unto the most blessed Peter: And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.  This power passed indeed to the other Apostles also; this the Lord's will had effect in them; but it is not in vain that it is written that that was given to one which passed from him to all.  To Peter alone were the keys given, and Peter is set as the pattern for all them that bear rule in the Church to follow.  There remaineth therefore the right of Peter, wheresoever his judgment decreeth justice.  Neither is there anything too hard, or too lax, where is nothing bound and nothing loosed, save when Peter bindeth or looseth.


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"Today's solemn feast received from our forefathers the name of Saint Peter's Chair at Antioch, because of a tradition that on this day Peter, first of the Apostles, took possession of his episcopal Chair.  Fitly, therefore, do the churches observe the day of his enthronement, the right to which the Apostles received for the sake of salvation, (which cometh to us in the churches,) when the Lord said: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. It was the Lord himself who called Peter the foundation of the Church, and therefore it is right that the Church should reverence this foundation whereon her mighty structure riseth.  Justly is it written in the Psalm which we so often chant: Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the seat of the elders.  Blessed be God, who hath commanded that the holy Apostle Peter be exalted in the congregation!  Worthy to be honoured by the Church is that foundation from which her goodly towers rise, pointing to heaven!

In the honour which is this day paid to the inauguration of the first Bishop's throne, an honour is paid to the office of all Bishops.  The Churches testify one to another, that, the greater the Church's dignity, the greater the reverence due to her priests.  While I confess how rightly godly custom hath exalted this Feast in the estimation of all the Churches, the more do I wonder at the growth of that unhealthy error which at this day causeth some unbelievers to lay food and wine upon the graves of the dead, as if souls once rid of the body had any longer any need of bodily refreshment."
St. Augustine the Bishop
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Two Successors of Peter: Pope Pius XII, Bishop of Rome (right) and the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, Maximos IV
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