Monday 2 August 2021
Monday of week 18 in Ordinary Time
or Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop
or Saint Peter Julian Eymard
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Monday of week 18 in Ordinary Time
The "Epistle of Barnabas"
The new law of our Lord
God swept away all these things. The new law of our Lord Jesus Christ imposes no yoke of coercion and its sacrifice is not one made by man. In another place he says to them, Did I command your fathers when they came out of the land of Egypt to offer me burnt offerings and sacrifices? No, but I commanded them this: “Let none of you cherish any evil in his heart against his neighbour, and let none of you be fond of breaking vows.” If we have any sense then we will understand the loving intention of our Father. He wants us not to err as these people did but to seek how we may make our offering to him. And he tells us: the sacrifice for the Lord is a contrite heart, a heart that glorifies its Maker is a sweet savour to the Lord. My brethren, we must look closely into the matter of our salvation so that the Evil One does not slyly enter our hearts and drag us away from the life that lies before us.
God also says to them, Why are you keeping a fast for me and filling this day with your whinings? I have not decreed this fast, says the Lord, nor this humiliation of man’s soul. Turning to us, he says Here is the fast I decree: relax your iniquitous restrictions, loosen the shackles of your oppressive contracts, let your ruined debtors go free and tear up your unjust agreements. Break your bread and give it to the hungry; if you see a man without clothing, give him clothes of your own. If you see one who is homeless, bring him into your own house.
Let us flee from all vanity, let us hold in aversion the Way of Wickedness and its works. Do not withdraw into solitude as if you were already considered righteous, but come together and seek out the common good. For Scripture says: Woe betide those who are wise in their own eyes and knowledgeable in their own sight. Let us be men of the Spirit, let us be a temple consecrated to God. As far as we can, let us devote ourselves to living in the fear of God, and let us strive to keep his commandments so that his ordinances become our delight. When the Lord judges the world he will have no favourites: each will receive according to his deeds. If he is good then his righteousness will lead him forward; if he is evil then the reward of iniquity will be in front of him. Let us never complacently think of ourselves as ‘called’, let us never doze in our sinfulness, or the Prince of Evil may gain power over us and thrust us out from the Kingdom of the Lord. And consider this also, my brethren, you see what great signs and wonders were wrought in Israel and yet in the end they were finally abandoned – let us be very careful not to be among those of whom it was written that many are called but few are chosen.
________
Other choices for today:
Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop
The Vercelli Codex (late 4th century), written by command of St Eusebius. The oldest copy of the Old Latin translation of the Gospel. John 16:23 "Nam si quid| petieritis Pa|trem in no|mine meo da|vit vobis".
From a letter by Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, bishop
I have run the race: I have kept the faith
Dearly beloved, I know now that you are safe, as I was hoping, and I felt that I had paid you a visit, by being suddenly transported over the face of the earth like Habakkuk, when the angel brought him to Daniel. When I receive a letter from one of you and see in your writings your goodness and love, joy mingles with tears, and my desire to continue reading is checked by my weeping. Both emotions are inescapable, as they vie with each other in discharging their duty of affection, when such a letter satisfies my longing for you.
Days pass in this way as I imagine myself in conversation with you, and so I forget my past sufferings. Consolations surround me on all sides: your firm faith, your love, your good works. In the midst of so many great blessings I soon imagine myself in your company, in exile no longer.
Dearly beloved, I rejoice in your faith, in the salvation that comes from faith, in your good works, which are not confined to your own surroundings but spread far and wide. Like a farmer tending a sound tree, untouched by axe or fire because of its fruit, I want not only to serve you in the body, good people that you are, but also to give my life for your well-being.
Somehow or other I have managed with difficulty to complete this letter. I asked God constantly to keep the guards away hour by hour, and to allow the deacon to bring you some kind of greeting in writing, not simply news of my suffering. So I beg you to keep the faith with all vigilance, to preserve harmony, to be earnest in prayer, to remember me always, so that the Lord may grant freedom to his Church which is suffering throughout the world, and that I may be set free from the sufferings that weigh upon me, and so be able to rejoice with you.
I also ask and beseech you in God’s mercy, that each one of you should add his own name to the greeting in this letter. Of necessity I cannot write to each of you as was my custom. So in this letter I ask you all – brothers and holy sisters, sons and daughters, men and women, old and young – to be content with this greeting and to be good enough to give my respectful good wishes to those who are outside the community and are kind enough to be my friends.
________
Saint Peter Julian Eymard
From the writings of St Peter Julian Eymard
Eucharist: sacrament of life
The Eucharist is the life of the people. The Eucharist gives them a centre of life. All can come together without the barriers of race or language in order to celebrate the feast days of the Church. It gives them a law of life, that of charity, of which it is the source; thus it forges between them a common bond, a Christian kinship. All eat the same bread, all are table companions of Jesus Christ who supernaturally creates among them a feeling of togetherness. Read the Acts of the Apostles. It states that the whole community of the first Christians, converted Jews and baptized pagans, belonging to different regions, “had but one heart and one soul”. Why? Because they were attentive to the teaching of the Apostles and faithful in sharing in the breaking of the bread.
Yes, the Eucharist is the life of souls and of societies, just as the sun is the life of the body and of the earth. Without the sun, the earth would be sterile, it is the sun which makes it fertile, renders it beautiful and rich; it is the sun which provides agility, strength and beauty to the body. In the face of these amazing effects, it is not astonishing that the pagans should have adored it as the god of the world. In actual fact, the sun obeys a supreme Sun, the divine Word, Jesus Christ, who illumines everyone coming into this world and who, through the Eucharist, Sacrament of life, acts in person in the very depths of souls in order to form Christian families and peoples. Oh how happy, a thousand times happy, is the faithful soul who has found this hidden treasure, who goes to drink at this fountain of living water, who eats often this Bread of eternal life!
Christian society is also a family. The link between its members is Jesus Christ. He is the head of the household who has prepared the family table. He is the head, Jesus Christ, who celebrated Christian togetherness at the Supper; he called his Apostles filioli, my little children, and he commanded them to love one another as he had loved them.
At the holy table we are all children who receive the same nourishment, and Saint Paul draws out the consequence of this, that is, that we form but one family, one same body, because we all share in the same bread, which is Jesus Christ. Lastly, the Eucharist gives Christian society the strength to observe the law of honour, and to practise charity towards one’s neighbour. Jesus Christ wants everyone to honour and love his brothers and sisters. For this reason he identifies himself with them: “What you do to the least of mine, you do to me”; and he gives himself to each one of them in Communion.
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.