Tuesday 1 February 2022
Tuesday of week 4 in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Tuesday of week 4 in Ordinary Time
From the treatise "Against the Heresies" by St Irenaeus
In Christ are the first-fruits of the Resurrection
The Word of God became man, the Son of God became the Son of Man, in order to unite man with himself and make him, by adoption, a son of God. Only by being united to one who is himself immune could we be preserved from corruption and death, and how else could this union have been achieved if he had not first become what we are? How else could what is corruptible and mortal in us have been swallowed up in his incorruptibility and immortality, to enable us to receive adoptive sonship? Therefore, the Son of God, our Lord, the Word of the Father, is also the son of man; he became the son of man by a human birth from Mary, a member of the human race.
The Lord himself has given us a sign here below and in the heights of heaven, a sign that man did not ask for because he never dreamt that such a thing would be possible. A virgin was with a child and she bore a son who is called Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” He came down to the earth here below in search of the sheep that was lost, the sheep that was in fact his own creature, and then ascended into the heights of heaven to offer to the Father and entrust to his care the human race that he had found again. The Lord himself became the first-fruits of the resurrection of mankind, and when its time of punishment for disobedience is over the rest of the body, to which the whole human race belongs, will rise from the grave as the head has done. By God’s aid it will grow and be strengthened in all its joints and ligaments, each member having its own proper place in the body. There are many rooms in the Father’s house because the body has many members.
God bore with man patiently when he fell because he foresaw the victory that would be his through the Word. Weakness allowed strength its full play, and so revealed God’s kindness and great power.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Henry Morse, Martyr
(From a martyrology).
From a sermon by Saint Augustine
The martyrs' deaths are made precious by the death of Christ
Through such glorious deeds of the holy martyrs, with which the Church blossoms everywhere, we prove with our own eyes how true it is, as we have just been singing, that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints; seeing that it is precious both in our sight and in the sight of him for the sake of whose name it was undertaken. But the price of these deaths is the death of one man. How many deaths were bought with one dying man, who was the grain of wheat that would not have been multiplied if he had not died! You have heard his words when he was drawing near to his passion, that is, when he was drawing near to our redemption: Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
On the cross, you see, Christ transacted a grand exchange; it was there that the purse containing our price was untied; when his side was laid open by the lance of the executioner, there poured out from it the price of the whole wide world. The faithful were bought, and the martyrs; but the faith of the martyrs has been proved, and their blood is the witness to it. The martyrs have paid back what was spent for them, and they have fulfilled what Saint John says: Just as Christ laid down his life for us, so we too should lay down our lives for the brethren. And in another place it says, You have sat down at a great table; consider carefully what is set before you, since you ought to prepare the same kind of thing yourself. It is certainly a great table, where the Lord of the table is himself the banquet. No-one feeds his guests on himself; that is what the Lord Christ did, being himself the host, himself the food and drink. Therefore the martyrs recognised what they ate and drank, so that they could give back the same kind of thing.
But from where could they give back the same kind of thing, if the one who made the first payment had not given them the means of giving something back? What shall I pay back to the Lord for all the things he has paid back to me? I will receive the cup of salvation. What is this cup? The bitter but salutary cup of suffering, the cup which the invalid would fear to touch if the doctor did not drink it first. That is what this cup is; we can recognise this cup on the lips of Christ, when he says, Father, if it can be so, let this cup pass from me. It is about this cup that the martyrs said, I will receive the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.
So are you not afraid of failing at this point? No? Why not? Because I will call upon the name of the Lord. How could the martyrs ever conquer, unless that one conquered in them who said Rejoice, since I have conquered the world? The emperor of the heavens was governing their minds and tongues, and through them overcoming the devil on earth and crowning the martyrs in heaven. O, how blessed are those who drank this cup thus! They have finished with suffering and have received honour instead.
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Blessed Benedict Daswa, Martyr
Photograph from Southern Cross magazine, 2017.
From the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Africae Munus" of Pope Benedict XVI
Cultivate interior life and relationship with God in all circumstances
In Africa’s present situation the Church is called to make the voice of Christ heard. Through her ability to see the face of Christ on the face of children, the sick, the needy and those who suffer, the Church is helping slowly but surely to forge a new Africa. In her prophetic role, whenever peoples cry out to her: “Watchman, what of the night?” (Is 21:11), the Church wants to be ready to give a reason for the hope she bears within her (cf.1 Pet 3:15), because a new dawn is breaking on the horizon (cf.Rev 22:5). Only by rejecting people’s dehumanization and every compromise prompted by fear of suffering or martyrdom can the cause of the Gospel of truth be served. “In the world”, said Christ, “you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
Through her lay members, the Church is present and active in the world. Lay people have an important role to play in the Church and in society. Lay men and women, in fact, are “ambassadors of Christ” (2 Cor 5:20) in the public sphere, in the heart of the world! Their Christian witness will be credible only if they are competent and honest professional people.
Lay men and women are called, above all, to holiness, a holiness which is to be lived in the world. Dear members of the faithful: cultivate your interior life and your relationship with God, so that the Holy Spirit may enlighten you in all circumstances. In order to ensure that the human person and the common good remain effectively at the centre of all human, political, economic or social activity, deepen your union with Christ, so as to know and love him by devoting time to God in prayer and in the reception of the sacraments. Allow yourselves to be enlightened and instructed by God and by his Word.
I would like to dwell again on the distinctive feature of a Christian’s professional life. In a word, it means bearing witness to Christ in the world by showing, through your example, that work can be a very positive setting for personal development and not primarily a means of making profit. Your work enables you to participate in the work of creation and to serve your brothers and sisters. Acting in this way, you will be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”, as the Lord asks of us. In daily life, put into practice the preferential option for the poor, whatever your position in society, in accordance with the spirit of the Beatitudes (cf.Mt 5:3-12), so as to see in them the face of Jesus who calls you to serve him (cf.Mt 25:31-46).
“May the memory of the great witnesses who gave their lives in service of the Gospel and the common good, or for the defence of truth and human rights, be kept alive and faithfully recalled”. For the saints are the true stars of our life, those “who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by — people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way.”
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Blessed Candelaria of Saint Joseph, Virgin
From a circular letter by Blessed Candelaria of Saint Joseph
I wish for you to receive this advice as having been inspired by God
Having given you my blessing, in the name of God, [I write to you] in fulfilment of a duty. On the eleventh day of this month, at 9 o’clock in the morning, in the great hall of the holy Novitiate, the following authorities were gathered: his Excellency Signor Dottor Sixto Sosa, most worthy diocesan bishop, accompanied by Monsignor Dottor José Maria Pibernat, Domestic Prelate of His Holiness, Vicar General of the Episcopate, and the Reverend Father Costantino de la Vega, capuchin.
Prayers having been said, in accordance with Carmelite ritual, Monsignor Pibernat read out paragraphs 248 to 274 of our holy Constitutions. Following completion of these readings, your servant resigned her office to the Prelate (an office she had held for twelve years), returned the seal, asked forgiveness for her failings and received signs of gratitude expressed by the Prelate in the form of a brief verbal exhortation [...].
You can imagine the sadness it brings me to hand over this Congregation to the Most Reverend Mother Luisa Teresa.
Every one of us must seek to be a good religious, to make our contribution. We must commit ourselves to strive for every virtue and seek to stand in the presence of God, who one day will judge us: let us serve him with respect, as even the angels tremble in his presence. We are bound to love him with all of our heart, our life and our intellect. Each of us has received invaluable graces, which we must not disregard.
We must observe our Constitutions, which have been approved by Monsignor Sosa for the Carmelite Sisters of Venezuela; we must take part in the Holy Mass respectfully and pray assiduously; we must practice the daily litanies, visit the Most Holy Sacrament, take spiritual communion; let us not be found lacking in moderation of appearance and language, in our commitment to scrupulously observe silence and to speak of God in our leisure times. Inspire all with devotion to the Most Holy Trinity, to the Most Holy Virgin and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The best way to achieve this is to observe silence in imitation of the profound silence which He observes in the Host. The words of the religious must always be very pure, as to speak of forbidden things is deplorable and a sin against the Holy Spirit.
For the love of God, we must all love each other; let us avoid specific friendships. Let us avoid gossip, and instead correct the defects we observe in our Sisters with our own good example. Call upon the assistance of the Most Holy Virgin. Let us be attentive during morning meditation and during the reading of the Constitutions. Let us strive not to be indolent; let us raise our hearts to God in order to reap the spiritual fruits of our good deeds.
Beloved sisters, I wish for you to understand me fully: I wish for you to receive this advice as having been inspired by God. I furthermore exhort you to undertake the special examination for weekly confession, with the five points indicated by the Holy Church in Catechism: the examination of conscience, the pain of our sins, the promise to never commit them again, the confession of our sins to the confessor and the satisfaction of penitence. All of this will help us to stand serene and in the grace of God, who awaits us with open arms on the day on which we must appear before his awesome judgement.
Copyright © 1996-2022 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.