Thursday 12 August 2021
Thursday of week 19 in Ordinary Time
or Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Thursday of week 19 in Ordinary Time
A treatise on Christian Perfection by St Gregory of Nyssa
We have Christ, who is our peace and our light
He is our peace, who has made both one. Since Christ is our peace, we shall be living up to the name of Christian if we let Christ be seen in our lives by letting peace reign in our hearts. He has brought hostility to an end, as the apostle said. Therefore, we must not allow it to come back to life in us in any way at all but must proclaim clearly that it is dead indeed. God has destroyed it in a wonderful way for our salvation. We must not, then, allow ourselves to give way to anger or bear grudges, for this would endanger our souls. We must not stir up the very thing that is well and truly dead, calling it back to life by our wickedness.
But as we bear the name of Christ, who is peace, we too must put an end to all hostility, so that we may profess in our lives what we believe to be true of him. He broke down the dividing wall and brought the two sides together in himself, thus making peace. We too, then, should not only be reconciled with those who attack us from without, we should also bring together the warring factions within us, so that the flesh may no longer be opposed to the spirit and the spirit to the flesh. Then when the mind that is set on the flesh is subject to the divine law, we may be refashioned into one new creature, into a man of peace. When the two have been made one we shall then have peace within ourselves.
The definition of peace is that there should be harmony between two opposed factions. And so, when the civil war in our nature has been brought to an end and we are at peace within ourselves, we may become peace. Then we shall really be true to the name of Christ that we bear.
When we consider that Christ is the true light far removed from all falsehood, we realise that our lives too should be lit by the rays of the sun of justice, which shine for our enlightenment. These rays are the virtues by which we cast off the works of darkness and conduct ourselves becomingly as in the light of day. Then, when we refuse to have anything to do with the darkness of wickedness and do everything in the light, we ourselves shall also become light and our works will give light to others, for it is in the nature of light to shine out.
But if we look upon Christ as our sanctification, then we should keep ourselves free from all that is wicked and impure both in thought and in deed and so prove ourselves worthy to bear his name, for we shall be demonstrating the effect of sanctification not in words but in our actions and in our lives.
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Other choices for today:
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious
From the memoirs of the secretary of St Jane Frances de Chantal
The martyrdom of love
One day Saint Jane said this: ‘My dear daughters, most of our holy Fathers, the pillars of the Church, were not martyrs. Why was this, do you think?’
After each one of us had had her say, she went on: I think it is because there is such a thing as a martyrdom of love: God keeps his servants alive to work for his glory, and this makes them martyrs and confessors at the same time. I know this is the sort of martyrdom the daughters of the Visitation will suffer, that is, those of them who are fortunate enough to set their hearts on it.’
A sister wanted to know just how this martyrdom worked out in practice.
‘Give God your unconditional consent,’ she said, ‘and then you will find out. What happens is that love seeks out the most intimate and secret place of your soul, as with a sharp sword, and cuts you off even from your own self. I know of a soul cut off in this way so that she felt it more keenly than if a tyrant had cleaved her body from her soul.’
We knew, of course, that she was speaking about herself. A sister wanted to know how long this martyrdom was likely to last.
‘From the moment we give ourselves up wholeheartedly to God until the moment we die,’ she answered. ‘But this goes for generous hearts and people who keep faith with love and don’t take back their offering; our Lord doesn’t take the trouble to make martyrs of feeble hearts and people who have little love and not much constancy; he just lets them jog along in their own little way in case they give up and slip from his hands altogether; he never forces our free will.’
She was asked whether this martyrdom of love could ever be as bad as the physical kind.
‘We won’t try to compare the two and look for equality; but I do not think the martyrdom of love is less painful than the other, because “love is strong as death”, and martyrs of love suffer infinitely more by staying alive to do God’s will than if they had to give up a thousand lives for their faith and love and loyalty.’
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Blessed Isidore Bakanja, Martyr
Homily of Pope John Paul II for the beatification of Isidore Bakanja
Witness to the Faith, crowned by martyrdom
You were a man of heroic faith, Isidore Bakanja, a young layman of Zaire. As one of the baptised, called to spread the Good News, you learned to share your faith and testified to Christ with such conviction that you seemed to your companions to be a catechist. Yes, Blessed Isidore, truly faithful to your baptismal promises, you were indeed a catechist; you laboured generously for the Church in Africa and her mission of evangelisation.
On this day when we proclaim your merits, we would like to pay homage to all catechists who work to build up the Church on the African continent. Catechists are the indispensable co-workers of priests among their people, and their work prepares, accompanies and completes that of the priests. In numerous periods of history they have enabled the faith to survive persecution. They were true shepherds who knew their sheep and whose sheep knew them. When it was necessary, they defended the flock at the cost of their own lives. Catechists are fully aware that many of their brothers and sisters are not yet members of the fold and are waiting to hear from their fraternal concern the proclamation of the Good News. In all they do, catechists give genuine witness to Christ, the one Shepherd.
Isidore, your sharing in the Paschal mystery of Christ, in that supreme work of His love, was total. Because you chose to remain loyal at all costs to the faith of your baptism, you suffered scourging like your Master. Like your Master on the Cross you forgave your persecutors; and you showed yourself to be a builder of peace and reconciliation.
In an Africa sorely tried by ethnic strife, your shining example is an encouragement to harmony and reconciliation among the children of the same heavenly Father. You practised brotherly love toward all, without distinction of race or social condition; you won the esteem and respect of your companions, many of whom were not Christians. Thus you show us the path of dialogue so necessary among all people.
You invite us, after your example, to accept the gift of his own Mother that Jesus made to us on the Cross. Clad in “Mary’s habit”, you advanced, like her and with her, on your pilgrimage of faith; like Jesus, the Good Shepherd, you gave your life for the flock. Help us, who must take the same path, to raise our eyes to Mary and to take her as our guide.
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.