Thursday 8 July 2021
Thursday of week 14 in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Thursday of week 14 in Ordinary Time
The Explanations of the Psalms by Saint Ambrose: Psalm 118
God's temple is holy, and you are his temple
My father and I will come to him and make our home with him. Open wide your door to the one who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Open your heart and run to meet the Sun of eternal light that illuminates all men. Indeed that true light shines on all; but if anyone closes his shutters against it then he will defraud himself of the eternal light. To close the doors of your mind is to exclude Christ. Of course he is capable of entering even so, but he does not want to force his way in or seize you against your will.
Born of the Virgin’s womb, he shone on the whole world to give light to all. It is received by those who desire the brightness of perpetual light that no night can obscure. For the sun that we see daily in the sky is followed by darkness and night; but the Sun of righteousness never sets, since evil cannot defeat wisdom.
Blessed is he, therefore, at whose door Christ comes knocking. Faith is the door of the soul, and if it is strong then it fortifies the whole house. Through this door Christ enters. Thus it is that the Church herself says, The voice of my brother is knocking on the door. Listen to him knocking, listen to him asking to be let in: Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my hair with the drops of night.
You see that when the Word of God knocks hardest on your door, it is when his hair is wet with the dew of the night. In fact he chooses to visit those who are in tribulation and trial, lest one of them be overwhelmed by distress. So his head is covered with dew, with drops, when his body is labouring hard. It is important to keep watch so that when the Bridegroom comes, he is not shut out. If you are asleep and your heart is not keeping watch, he will go away without knocking; but if your heart is alert for his coming, he knocks and asks for the door to be opened to him.
Thus you see that our soul has a door, but we have gates too, as the psalm says: Gates, raise your heads. Stand up, eternal doors, and let the king of glory enter. If you choose to raise your gates, the King of glory will come to you, celebrating the triumph of his own Passion. For righteousness has gates, as we see it written when the Lord Jesus speaks through his prophets: Open to me the gates of righteousness.
It is the soul that has its door, it is the soul that has its gates. To that door Christ comes and knocks, he knocks at the door. Open to him, therefore: he wishes to come in, the Bridegroom wishes to find you keeping watch.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Withburga, Abbess
From the Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life of the Second Vatican Council
The Church follows her only spouse, Christ
From the very first days of the Church there were men and women who aimed to follow Christ with greater freedom and imitate him more closely, by the practice of the evangelical counsels. They dedicated their lives to God in various ways. Many of them, inspired by the Holy Spirit, led the life of hermits, or raised up religious families to which the Church readily gave her authoritative approval. And so, in accordance with God’s plan a wonderful variety of religious communities has grown up. These have enabled the Church not only to be equipped for every good work and prepared for the work of the ministry of building up the Body of Christ, but also, arrayed in the different gifts of her sons, to appear as a bride adorned for her husband; and thus, through the Church the manifold wisdom of God is made known.
Amidst this great variety of gifts, all who are called by God to the practice of the evangelical counsels and loyally profess them, are dedicating themselves to the Lord in a special way by following Christ, the example of all chastity and poverty; who by his obedience, even to death on the cross, redeemed and sanctified mankind. Fired by the love which the Holy Spirit pours out in their hearts, they live their lives ever increasingly for Christ and for his Body which is the Church. Consequently, the more fervent their union with Christ through this giving of themselves, which includes the whole of their lives, the richer the life of the Church becomes and the more fruitful her apostolate.
Members of any sort of religious institute must bear particularly in mind that the profession of the evangelical counsels was their response to God’s call, so that they might not only be dead to sin but also renounce the world and live for God alone. They have made over the whole of their lives to his service and this is a special type of consecration, deeply rooted in the consecration of baptism, which it expresses more fully.
Those who profess the evangelical counsels should above all else seek and love God, who has first loved us. In everything they must endeavour to nourish a hidden life with Christ in God, which will lead to and encourage that love of one’s neighbour which is for the salvation of the world and the building up of the Church. It is from this love that the actual practice of the evangelical counsels takes its life and direction.
Chastity ‘for the kingdom of heaven’, which religious profess, must be seen as a special gift of grace. It frees man’s heart in a particular way so as to increase the flame of his love for God and all men. It is thus a special token of the rewards of heaven, as well as a most suitable way for the religious to dedicate himself readily to the service of God and the works of the apostolate. In this way they are a reminder for all believers in Christ of the marriage in which the Church has Christ as its one spouse, that marriage established by God, which will be made manifest in the world to come.
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.