Tuesday 2 June 2020
Tuesday of week 9 in Ordinary Time
or Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Tuesday of week 9 in Ordinary Time
A colloquy of St Dorotheus
On false spiritual peace
The man who finds fault with himself accepts all things cheerfully – misfortune, loss, disgrace, dishonour and any other kind of adversity. He believes that he is deserving of all these things and nothing can disturb him. No one could be more at peace than this man.
But perhaps you will offer me this objection: “Suppose my brother injures me, and on examining myself I find that I have not given him any cause. Why should I blame myself?”
Certainly if someone examines himself carefully and with fear of God, he will never find himself completely innocent. He will see that he has given some provocation by an action, a word or by his manner. If he does find that he is not guilty in any of these ways, certainly he must have injured that brother somehow at some other time. Or perhaps he has been a source of annoyance to some other brother. For this reason he deserves to endure the injury because of many other sins that he has committed on other occasions.
Someone else asks why he should accuse himself when he was sitting peacefully and quietly when a brother came upon him with an unkind or insulting word. He cannot tolerate it, and so he thinks that his anger is justified. If that brother had not approached him and said those words and upset him, he never would have sinned.
This kind of thinking is surely ridiculous and has no rational basis. For the fact that he has said anything at all in this situation breaks the cover on the passionate anger within him, which is all the more exposed by his excessive anxiety. If he wished, he would do penance. He has become like a clean, shiny grain of wheat that, when broken, is full of dirt inside.
The man who thinks that he is quiet and peaceful has within him a passion that he does not see. A brother comes up, utters some unkind word and immediately all the venom and mire that lie hidden within him are spewed out. If he wishes mercy, he must do penance, purify himself and strive to become perfect. He will see that he should have returned thanks to his brother instead of returning the injury, because his brother has proven to be an occasion of profit to him. It will not be long before he will no longer be bothered by these temptations. The more perfect he grows, the less these temptations will affect him. For the more the soul advances, the stronger and more powerful it becomes in bearing the difficulties that it meets.
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Other choices for today:
Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs
Wall painting (4th century) from the catacomb of Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana, showing Christ between Peter and Paul, and below them the martyrs Gorgonius, Peter, Marcellinus, and Tiburtius.
The Exhortation to Martyrdom, by Origen
Sharing in Christ's sufferings, they will also share in his consolation
If we have passed out of death into life by passing out of unbelief into faith, we should not be surprised if the world hates us. For no one who does not pass from death to life but remains in death can love those who have passed out of this dark house of death, as it could be called, to the building that is lit by the light of life, built up of living stones.
Jesus laid down his life for us, and so we should lay down our lives, I do not say for him, but for ourselves, or rather, I suppose, for those who are going to be built up by our martyrdom.
Christians, the time has come for us to boast. For we read: ‘That is not all we can boast about; we can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive. So much has the love of God been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.’
If, as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in consolation too, then let us accept Christ’s sufferings gladly. Let us share in them abundantly, if we are looking for abundant consolation. And this is what those who mourn will receive, although perhaps not in equal measure. If the consolation were exactly equal for each person, then Paul would not have written: ‘As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also our consolation abounds.’
Those who share in his sufferings will also share in consolation, in proportion to the sufferings that they share with Christ. You learn this from the apostle’s confident words: ‘You know that as you share in sufferings, you will also share in consolation.’
God said through his prophet: ‘In a time of favour I have answered you, in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ What, then, could be a more favourable time than the day when we are led off under guard, paraded before the world, but triumphant rather than the objects of a triumph, and this because of our faithful service of God in Christ?
For Christian martyrs in the company of Christ completely overcome the principalities and powers; together with him they triumph over them; sharing in his sufferings, they also share in the victories that he has won by his courage in suffering. What other day of salvation is there than the day that we depart from the world in this way?
But, I beg you, put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God commend yourselves through great endurance. You should make your own the words: ‘What do I wait for now, except the Lord?’
Copyright © 1996-2020 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.