Saturday 22 August 2020
Our Lady, Mother and Queen
on Saturday of week 20 in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Our Lady, Mother and Queen
From a homily by St Amadeus of Lausanne, bishop
Queen of the world and of peace
Observe how fitting it was that even before her assumption the name of Mary shone forth wondrously throughout the world. Her fame spread everywhere even before she was raised above the heavens in her magnificence. Because of the honour due her Son, it was indeed fitting for the Virgin Mother to have first ruled upon earth and then be raised up to heaven in glory. It was fitting that her fame be spread in this world below, so that she might enter the heights of heaven on overwhelming blessedness. Just as she was borne from virtue to virtue by the Spirit of the Lord, she was transported from earthly renown to heavenly brightness.
So it was that she began to taste the fruits of her future reign while still in the flesh. At one moment she withdrew to God in ecstasy; at the next she would bend down to her neighbours with indescribable love. In heaven angels served her, while here on earth she was venerated by the service of men. Gabriel and the angels waited upon her in heaven. The virgin John, rejoicing that the Virgin Mother was entrusted to him at the cross, cared for her with the other apostles here below. The angels rejoiced to see their queen; the apostles rejoiced to see their lady, and both obeyed her with loving devotion.
Dwelling in the loftiest citadel of virtue, like a sea of divine grace or an unfathomable source of love that has everywhere overflowed its banks, she poured forth her bountiful waters on trusting and thirsting souls. Able to preserve both flesh and spirit from death she bestowed health-giving salve on bodies and souls. Has anyone ever come away from her troubled or saddened or ignorant of the heavenly mysteries? Who has not returned to everyday life gladdened and joyful because his request had been granted by the Mother of God?
She is a bride, so gentle and affectionate, and the mother of the only true bridegroom. In her abundant goodness she has channelled the spring of reason’s garden, the well of living and life-giving waters that pour forth in a rushing stream from divine Lebanon and flow down from Mount Zion until they surround the shores of every far-flung nation. With divine assistance she has redirected these waters and made them into streams of peace and pools of grace. Therefore, when the Virgin of virgins was led forth by God and her Son, the King of kings, amid the company of exulting angels and rejoicing archangels, with the heavens ringing with praise, the prophecy of the psalmist was fulfilled, in which he said to the Lord: At your right hand stands the queen, clothed in gold of Ophir.
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The ferial reading for today:
Saturday of week 20 in Ordinary Time
The Explanations of the Psalms by Saint Ambrose: Psalm 48
Through his blood Christ reconciled the world to God
When Christ reconciled the world to God he himself was certainly not in need of reconciliation. What sin could he do penance for, when he had no sin in him? Moreover, when the Jews were asking for the half-shekel, the offering given for sin according to the Law, he said to Peter: ‘Simon, what is your opinion? From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from foreigners?’ And when Peter replied, ‘From foreigners’, Jesus said, ‘Well then, the sons are exempt. However, so as not to offend these people, go to the lake and cast a hook; take the first fish that bites, open its mouth and there you will find a shekel; take it and give it to them for me and for you.’
He showed that he does not owe an offering for any sin of his own, for he was not a slave of sin: the Son of God was free from all fault. For the son gives freedom; it is the slave who is guilty. So Jesus is completely free, and he does not make payment to redeem his soul. The price of his blood was more than enough to redeem all the sins of the entire world. It is right that he who owes nothing for himself should be able to give freedom to others.
Let me say more. Christ owes nothing for his own redemption and owes nothing as propitiation for sin. But more than that, if you consider any one of us then you will see that none of us owes anything as a propitiatory offering, because Christ himself is that offering, the offering for all and the redemption of all.
What man’s blood now has the power to redeem him, when Christ has shed his own blood for the redemption of all? Is there anyone whose blood could be compared to Christ’s? Or what man is so powerful that he could make an offering of propitiation greater than the offering that Christ made of himself when he alone reconciled the world to God by his blood? What greater sacrificial victim can there be, what superior sacrifice, what better advocate could there be than Christ, who became the atonement for the sins of all, who gave his life for our redemption?
Individual propitiation, individual redemption is not needed, because the blood of Christ is the price of all. By that blood the Lord Jesus redeemed us, and he alone has reconciled us to the Father. He laboured at this to the end, for he took our own burdens on himself when he said, Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.
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.