Friday 13 November 2020
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
on Friday of week 32 in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in a stained-glass window at the saint’s shrine chapel in New York City. (CNS photo).
A homily by Pope Pius XII
A humble woman who lived a virtuous life
Inspired by the grace of God, we join the saints in honouring the holy virgin Frances Xavier Cabrini. She was a humble woman who became outstanding not because she was famous, or rich or powerful, but because she lived a virtuous life. From the tender years of her youth, she kept her innocence as white as a lily and preserved it carefully with the thorns of penitence; as the years progressed, she was moved by a certain instinct and a supernatural zeal to dedicate her whole life to the service and greater glory of God.
She welcomed delinquent youths into safe homes and taught them to live upright and holy lives. She consoled those who were in prison and recalled to them the hope of eternal life. She encouraged prisoners to reform themselves and to live honest lives.
She comforted the sick and the infirm in the hospitals and diligently cared for them. She extended a friendly and helping hand especially to immigrants and offered them necessary shelter and relief, for having left their homeland behind, they were wandering about in a foreign land with no place to turn for help. Because of their condition she saw that they were in danger of deserting the practice of Christian virtues and their Catholic faith.
Where did she acquire all that strength and the inexhaustible energy by which she was able to perform so many good works and to surmount so many difficulties involving material things, travel and men?
Undoubtedly she accomplished all this through the faith which was always so vibrant and alive in her heart; through the divine love which burned within her; and, finally, through constant prayer by which she was so closely united with God from whom she humbly asked and obtained whatever her human weakness could not obtain.
In the face of the endless cares and anxieties of life, she never let anything turn her aside from striving and aiming to please God and to work for his glory for which nothing, aided by God’s grace, seemed too laborious, or difficult, or beyond human strength.
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The ferial reading for today:
Friday of week 32 in Ordinary Time
A sermon of the second century
Let us turn to God, who has called us
The advice I have given about continence is by no means unimportant. If someone follow it he will not be sorry: he will save himself and me too, as the giver of this advice. It is no small reward, to take a lost and wandering soul and bring it to safety. For this is how we can pay God back for creating us, by making sure that whoever speaks or listens, speaks or listens in faith and love.
Let us keep firm in what we believe, in righteousness and holiness, so that we can trustingly pray to the God who told us Even while you are still speaking I will answer, Behold, I am here. This saying is a sign of a great promise, because it says that God is quicker to give than we are to ask. Since we all have a share in his generosity, let us not be envious of one another for receiving such great blessings. For just as these words bring happiness to those who follow them, so do they bring condemnation to those who do not.
So, brethren, this is no small opportunity for penitence that we have been given. Let us take advantage of it, let us turn to God who has called us, while we still have time, while we have someone who will receive us. If we renounce these desires and we conquer our souls and do not follow their evil impulses, we shall share in Jesus’s mercy. But be aware that the day of judgement is coming, a day like a blazing furnace, that a part of the heavens and the entire earth like lead melting in a fire, and all the deeds of men will be revealed, whether they were hidden or open. Therefore almsgiving is good, as penance for sin: fasting is better than prayer but almsgiving is better than both. Charity covers a multitude of sins, but prayer done with a good conscience liberates us from death. Blessed is anyone who is perfect in these ways: for almsgiving lifts the weight of sin.
So let us do penance wholeheartedly, lest any one of us perish. For if we have been commanded to draw people away from the worship of idols, and to teach them, how much more important it must be that a soul that already knows God should not perish. Let us help one another so that we lead even the weak to goodness, so that we may all be saved, may be converted together and guide each other.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Blessed Maria Teresa Scrilli, Virgin
From the writings of Mother Maria Teresa Scrilli
Oh, what a good guide it is to take joy in Him, to toil for Him and then return to rest in Him
The feeling of the Divine Presence had become, as I have said, constant; in prayer, books were of no use to me, nor could I express it: it was a most sweet union (if I am not in error, of peaceful prayer: I say this, giving it the name of union, believing it to be such, according to my limited knowledge), as I said, it was a most sweet union, from which I was unable to detach myself, or to express it better, I could not resign myself to its cessation, were I not convinced that this was to leave God, for God; I mean, to leave God in the contemplation of Magdalene, to find Him once again in my duties, the work of Martha; as if both were one and the same, and that it would be wrong not to be entirely devoted to both: that He is pleased, that we cease our admiration of Him in order to toil for Him, and then find repose in Him once more. Oh what a good guide in this (as in all other things) is pure love of You! And how easy it is, for it to become mixed with love of ourselves! I mean, our satisfaction, which although spiritual, I do not believe to be good; I never did, and have found confirmation in some of what I have read, I believe it was in the writings of the Holy Mother Teresa, but as I said before reading them, I was already of this opinion. It is great, the misery I see, and I have experienced this: either we seek to be devout and spiritual in our own way, or we are not at all; small minds easily fall into the first error, and great minds (not big ones) into the second misfortune. Oh, my God! A wicked thing is pride, terrible even, as it corrupts and diverts that most beautiful gift of man, intellect, from its true purpose. Oh, if only it were used for that for which You gave it to us… oh, what happiness! And why do people not understand, that this (intellect, I mean) is a gift from You? Ah! Our happiness is wasted on vanities and fallacies, and we may never understand why it is not given to us, or why it is taken from others, by premature death. Oh blindness… oh blindness! To lose ourselves in the human sciences, when they are of no use in the immortal aim: and that which must come to an end can certainly not be called immortal.
Oh, my Spouse, oh, my Spouse: how painful is this awareness, to one who loves You so! I mean, understanding how knowledge of You is disregarded by men… as if every other thing were more necessary than this. Oh, what confusion of human minds! That in our times the best (those who seek to be true Christians) approve so many things, and practise so many more, with the justification that they are duties of convenience, customs of the times, which as time passes evolve and change.
Oh you… woeful civilisation, if religion is gradually extinguished in the heart of man! Oh Spouse, oh Spouse, and who will follow You, out there in the midst of the wide world?
If there are those who do not do so out of malice; those who restrain themselves out of human respect; there are others who do not, out of ignorance… I mean, because they were raised in ignorance, due to their status and poverty: it is not the latter, but the former, who seek and are dazzled by the vain sciences of the world, and disregard knowledge of Godly things: ah! He truly has nowhere to lay his head: all around are the briers and thorns of vanity; and I fear, that even that which appears to be virtue is not true and lasting piety; let us eschew riches to avoid temptation, let us not long for honours or wealth, but instead take joy in following God.
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