Saturday 14 November 2020
Saturday of week 32 in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Saturday of week 32 in Ordinary Time
A sermon of the second century
Let us seek righteousness so that in the end we are saved
Let us therefore find ourselves among those who give thanks, those who have served God, and not among the wicked who are judged. Although I myself am a sinner in all things, and still ensnared by the devil, I aim for righteousness and hope to get close to it in the end; for I fear the judgement that is to come.
So, brothers and sisters, after we have heard the words of the God of truth, I read you this exhortation. I hope to turn your souls’ full attention to what has been written, so that you bring salvation not only to yourselves but to me as I read the word of God to you. I beg for this reward: that you should do penance wholeheartedly and thus bring salvation and life on yourselves. If we do this then we shall be able to show an example to all the young who want to turn their lives towards the love and goodness of God. And if someone sees our folly and tries to turn us from evil to righteousness, let us not be angry or indignant; for often when we do evil we do not pay attention to the fact – either from inner duplicity or from lack of faith – and our minds are clouded by our worthless desires.
Therefore let us be righteous so that in the end we may be saved. Blessed are those who obey these precepts: even if they suffer evil in this world for a short while, they will reap a harvest of eternal life. Let the good man not be saddened if he suffers present troubles: a blessed time awaits him, when he will be raised to life and will rejoice with his fathers through an untroubled eternity.
We should not be perturbed if we see the wicked living in comfort while the servants of God suffer want. Brothers and sisters, let us be firm in faith: in this life we are suffering trials that come from the living God, so that we may wear crowns in the next life. None of the righteous receive the fruits of their goodness instantly, but all have to wait for them. If it were otherwise, if God gave quick rewards for righteousness, then it would not be piety that drove us to good acts but a simple matter of business. We would see virtue not as a good thing but as a profitable thing. For this reason the judgement of God shakes a spirit that is not filled with righteousness and loads chains upon it.
To the one invisible God, the Father of truth, who sent us our saviour as the founder of our immortality and showed us the truth through him and the way to eternal life – to God be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Laurence O'Toole, Bishop
Stained glass window in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Wexford.
From a bull of Pope Honorius III
Progress by the example of such great virtue
As the faithful increase in number, the number of the people called from darkness to walk in the light of the Lord their God, as Isaiah the prophet calls them, his wonderful providence has raised up over these new peoples pastors to feed them with knowledge and doctrine, as he had promised in the words of Jeremiah: teachers in his Church to water the hearts of the faithful with the dew of their doctrine, to root out from them the thickets of vices and make them fertile for the seed of virtue and the fruit of good works.
All our enquiries have confirmed to us that Laurence was from his childhood brought up in holy learning, that in boyhood he had the seriousness of mature years, and that he had put away from him the allurements of the world’s vanities to a degree that belied his youth. When later he became archbishop of Dublin he made such further progress in virtue that he was totally dedicated to God: indefatigable in his prayer, stern in his bodily penances, unstinting in his almsgiving.
His holiness has been proved by his many miracles; and so, accepting this divine judgement making clear to us that he is in glory, we have enrolled this most holy man in the calendar of the saints, and decreed that his name be added to the brotherhood of the holy confessors, and that he is to be venerated by the faithful as one of their number. We have also laid it down that his holy feastday be from now on kept each year on the fourteenth day of November; and we ask you all, and exhort you in the Lord, that as you praise God with a devout mind, and in your zeal to make progress by the example of such great virtue, you humbly ask this most renowned confessor to intercede for you with God.
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All Carmelite Saints
From 'On Patience' by Blessed Baptist of Mantua
They will see Christ himself and his blessed Mother and all the saints in glory
It would be rash for me to say anything about the joy of paradise, since it is written in Isaiah and in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, ‘No eye has seen and no ear has heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him.’ Why endeavour to express the very thing that is unable to enter into the heart of man?
I would rather say something to arouse in you the desire of experiencing what mortal eyes cannot see. For this desire uplifts the mind from earthly to heavenly things and causes us to become at least partly of heaven, even though we are still earthly and mortal. If the saying is true, ‘Where your treasure is, there is your heart also,’ then if our treasure is in heaven our hearts must be in heaven too. And if our hearts are in heaven and are heavenly, then it is our desire that makes our hearts heavenly. So let us try in our meditation to be lifted up to infinite matters from the small, and to mighty matters from the least.
As heaven exceeds the earth in magnitude and height and beauty, so heavenly goods are doubtless to be preferred to earthly ones. I can say this without hesitation, even though I do not know what heavenly goods are like – for they are beyond all imagining. The two powers of our intellective ability are intellect and will. The intellect is gratified by knowledge of the truth, but the will is gratified by the possession of satisfaction, and there is nothing more pleasing in this life.
‘Our knowledge is imperfect and our prophesying is imperfect.’ We know as children, we speak as children, because we always see only ‘a dim image in a mirror:’ for the body is a hindrance which weighs down the soul and interferes with its understanding. However, because in paradise man will see face to face and know as he is known, ‘all imperfect things will pass away,’ and this immense desire that we have will be utterly satisfied. The all-embracing essence which is the first Truth will reveal himself to our intelligence, and at last that saying will be fulfilled, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’
At present our intellect is disturbed by the coming and going of many fantasies. It is like a child in the market place, captivated now by this, now by that. It is not still, it does not see God, and all its busyness and work is in vain.
No matter how innocently and piously we live, it is only in paradise that we will find the home of our hopes and our desires. It was with this home in mind that the prophet said, ‘Glorious things are told of you, O city of God!’ and ‘How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord God of hosts! My soul is longing and yearning for the courts of the Lord,’ and ‘As a deer yearns for running streams, so my soul is longing for you, my King and my God. My soul is thirsting for God, the living God, when shall I see him face to face?’ Then, God will be all things to all people; he will satisfy the desire of every person. God will fill our minds with such delight that the prophet’s saying will be perfectly fulfilled, ‘I shall be satisfied when your glory appears.’ The blessed will hear the sweet praises of God resounding on all sides; again, this is what the prophet says: ‘O happy are those who dwell in your house, forever singing your praise!’ They will also see the heavens and perceive their harmonious wholeness. They will see Christ himself and his blessed Mother and all the saints in glory. Incorruptible, and radiant in their beauty, they will be such a wonder to behold that no one could imagine anything more desirable.
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.