Monday 22 June 2020
Monday of week 12 in Ordinary Time
or Saints John Fisher, Bishop, and Thomas More, Martyrs
or Saint Paulinus of Nola, Bishop
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Monday of week 12 in Ordinary Time
A treatise on Christian Perfection by St Gregory of Nyssa
The Christian is another Christ
More than anyone, St Paul understood who Christ is and those requirements needed by the person named after him. Paul spoke of what he himself had accomplished and accurately imitated him in a manner to show the Lord expressed in his own person. By careful imitation Paul became a model so that it is no longer he who is perceived as living and speaking, but Christ who lives in him. Knowing his own blessings, that good man said You seek proof that Christ is speaking in me and, elsewhere, It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.
Paul’s words show us the significance of Christ’s name, when he said that Christ is the power and wisdom of God. But he also called Christ: peace; the inaccessible light where God dwells; our sanctification and redemption; the great high priest; our Passover and our sacrifice of expiation; the brightness of glory; the very image of God’s substance; the creator of the ages; our spiritual food and drink; the rock and the water; the foundation of faith; the chief cornerstone; the image of the great and invisible God; the head of his body, the Church; the first-born of the new creation and the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep; the first-born from the dead, the first-born among many brothers; the mediator between God and man; the only-begotten Son crowned with honour and glory; the Lord of glory; the beginning of all things; the King of justice, but not only of justice but also the King of peace and the King of all things, the King whose kingdom is boundless.
Paul gave all these names to Christ and many others too: so many that they cannot easily be counted. But they are all related, and if you understand the meaning of each of them on its own and put those meanings together then you will come to understand the full meaning of that one word “Christ” and that will show you – as far as the human soul is able to comprehend it – God’s inexpressible greatness.
The good Lord has granted us the privilege of sharing in this, the greatest, most divine and chief of all names, so that, honoured by the name of Christ, we are called “Christians.” So then we must ensure that in us are seen all the meanings of the name of Christ, so that our title is not false and meaningless but is borne out by our lives.
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Other choices for today:
Saints John Fisher, Bishop, and Thomas More, Martyrs
From a letter written in prison to his daughter, Margaret, by Saint Thomas More
With good hope I shall commit myself wholly to God
Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in his merciful goodness. His grace has strengthened me until now and made me content to lose goods, land, and life as well, rather than to swear against my conscience. God’s grace has given the king a gracious frame of mind towards me, so that as yet he has taken from me nothing but my liberty. In doing this His Majesty has done me such great good with respect to spiritual profit that I trust that among all the great benefits he has heaped so abundantly upon me I count my imprisonment the very greatest. I cannot, therefore, mistrust the grace of God. Either he shall keep the king in that gracious frame of mind to continue to do me no harm, or else, if it be his pleasure that for my other sins I suffer in this case as I shall not deserve, then his grace shall give me the strength to bear it patiently, and perhaps even gladly.
By the merits of his bitter passion joined to mine and far surpassing in merit for me all that I can suffer myself, his bounteous goodness shall release me from the pains of purgatory and shall increase my reward in heaven besides.
I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray to him for help. And then I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.
And if he permits me to play Saint Peter further and to fall to the ground and to swear and forswear, may God our Lord in his tender mercy keep me from this, and let me lose if it so happen, and never win thereby! Still, if this should happen, afterwards I trust that in his goodness he will look on me with pity as he did upon Saint Peter, and make me stand up again and confess the truth of my conscience afresh and endure here the shame and harm of my own fault.
And finally, Margaret, I know this well: that without my fault he will not let me be lost. I shall, therefore, with good hope commit myself wholly to him. And if he permits me to perish for my faults, then I shall serve as praise for his justice. But in good faith, Meg, I trust that his tender pity shall keep my poor soul safe and make me commend his mercy.
And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.
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Saint Paulinus of Nola, Bishop
From a letter by Saint Paulinus of Nola, bishop
God everywhere produces his love in his people through the Holy Spirit
You have shown, my lord, that you bear within you true charity and perfect love towards my humble person. Truly holy and deservedly blessed, you are a most desirable friend, for my cousin Julian on his return from Carthage delivered the letter which conveyed to us the shining light of your sanctity. As a result it seems to me that I am not just now coming to know your love for me but rather recognising it as something I was already aware of. For clearly this love of yours came forth from the one who predestined us for himself from the foundation of the world. In him, the maker of all that is to be, we were made before we were born, because he made us and not we ourselves. Shaped by his work and his foreknowledge, then, we were already joined by charity into a likeness of wills and a union of faith, or a faith of unity, that anticipated our present acquaintance. So before we met in person, we became known to each other in the revelation of the Spirit.
Hence I give thanks and boast in the Lord, who, one and the same throughout the world, produces his love in his people through the Holy Spirit whom he pours out upon all flesh. With the flow of the river he gladdens his city among whose citizens he rightly established you to be the first among the princes of his people in your apostolic see. Likewise, he wanted me, whom he raised up when I was downtrodden, and lifted up from the earth when I was destitute, to be numbered among your associates. But I am more grateful for that gift of the Lord by which he established a place for me in your heart and allowed me so to penetrate your affections that I might claim a personal trust in your love. Moved by such kindnesses and gifts, I could not love you in a merely casual or negligent way.
But you should know everything about me and you should be aware that I am a sinner of long standing. It is not so long ago that I was led out of darkness and the shadow of death; only recently have I begun to breathe in the air of life; only recently have I put my hand to the plough and taken up the cross of Christ. I need to be helped by your prayers to persevere to the end. And if you should lighten my burden by your intercession, this is the reward that will be added on to your merits, for the holy man who helps a labourer (I dare not call myself a brother) will be exalted like a great city.
We have sent to you a loaf of bread in token of our unity; it symbolises as well the substance of the Trinity. By accepting it you will make it a bread of blessing.
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.