Thursday 4 February 2021
Thursday of week 4 in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Thursday of week 4 in Ordinary Time
From the Instructions to Catechumens by St Cyril of Jerusalem
Even in time of persecution let the Cross be your joy
The Catholic Church glories in every deed of Christ. Her supreme glory, however, is the cross. Well aware of this, Paul says: God forbid that I glory in anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!
At Siloam, there was a sense of wonder, and rightly so: a man born blind recovered his sight. But of what importance is this, when there are so many blind people in the world? Lazarus rose from the dead, but even this affected only Lazarus: what of those countless numbers who have died because of their sins? Those miraculous loaves fed five thousand people; yet this is a small number compared to those all over the world who were starved by ignorance. After eighteen years a woman was freed from the bondage of Satan; but are we not all shackled by the chains of our own sins?
For us all, however, the cross is the crown of victory. It has brought light to those blinded by ignorance. It has released those enslaved by sin. Indeed, it has redeemed the whole of mankind!
Do not, then, be ashamed of the cross of Christ; rather, glory in it. Although it is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, the message of the cross is our salvation. Of course it is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it was not a mere man who died for us, but the Son of God, God made man.
In the Mosaic law a sacrificial lamb banished the destroyer. But now it is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Will he not free us from our sins even more? The blood of an animal, a sheep, brought salvation. Will not the blood of the only-begotten Son bring us greater salvation?
He was not killed by violence, he was not forced to give up his life: his was a willing sacrifice. Listen to his own words: I have the power to lay down my life and take it up again. Yes, he willingly submitted to his own passion. He took joy in his achievement; in his crown of victory he was glad and in the salvation of man he rejoiced. He did not blush at the cross, for by it he was to save the world. No, it was not a lowly man who suffered, but God incarnate. He entered the contest for the reward he would win by his patient endurance.
Certainly in times of tranquillity the cross should give you joy. But maintain the same faith in times of persecution. Otherwise you will be a friend of Jesus in times of peace and his enemy during war. Now you receive the forgiveness of your sins and the generous gift of grace from your king. When war comes, fight courageously for him.
Jesus never sinned; yet he was crucified for you. Will you refuse to be crucified for him, who for your sake was nailed to the cross? You are not the one who gives the favour; you have received one first. For your sake he was crucified on Golgotha. Now you are returning his favour: you are fulfilling your debt to him.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus Grialou, Priest and Founder
From the writings of Blessed Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus, priest
The saint in the whole Christ
It is especially in their common work that the Holy Spirit glorifies the instruments He has chosen. The Holy Spirit makes Himself lowly with saints in order to glorify them. Inspirer of the work by His light, efficacious agent by His omnipotence, yet He hides Himself under the human traits of the apostle. Anyone wanting to analyze the character of the works could, in fact, find the raison d’être of each one of them in the personality of the saint. The manifold works and institutions in which the Spirit has put His leaven of immortality and in which the Church takes just pride, show forth admirably the gifts, the desires, the diverse genius of their founder. The Holy Spirit appears in this world under a thousand human faces that reflect the power and grace of His hidden presence. The Spirit never repeats Himself in the exterior forms He chooses. Is this not the reason why Saint John of the Cross asks us never to take a saint for our model? This would be to expose oneself to failure in suppleness, in fidelity to the movement of the Spirit, who manifests His power and perfection as Spirit in the variety of His works and the perfection of His incarnation in each one of His instruments.
The delicate charms of this loving collaboration of God and the soul, these playings of the love that unites them, in turn, brilliant and hidden, all these splendours of lowliness and of power are only beauties of here below, a reflection that reaches us from the beauty of the work the Holy Spirit is building. This work is the Spouse who comes up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her Beloved; this is the masterpiece of Divine Mercy, the whole Christ in whom God has brought together and orientated all things. For the beauty of the Church of God, Jesus gave His blood; and the Spirit continues to immolate His victims after filling them with the marvellous gifts of His grace. We are all dedicated to the consummation of this work. Our gaze must rest on it lovingly and there remain fixed.
The saint is such only because he has entered by transforming union in the whole Christ. Identified with Christ Jesus, he continues Christ’s priestly prayer for union. With the Spirit of Love, he groans within himself, “waiting for the adoption as sons”; and under Love’s captivation, works to consummate in unity all those whom God has “predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son.”
Copyright © 1996-2021 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.