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THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ THE GOSPEL LAW OF JUSTICE

(Read Matt. v, 20-24.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that God rightly exacts greater perfection in the observance of the Evangelical law, or that of the Gospel, than in the observance of the Mosaic, which was in a state of servitude and to whom only earthly blessings were promised: For the law brought nothing to perfection. (Heb. vii, 19.) On the contrary the law of the Gospel is most perfect and excellent. It brings more light and gives greater helps of grace. Consequently it justly requires more perfection, not only in outward acts but in the interior spirit. Hence Christians are bound to practise greater perfection by this law, than the Hebrews under the Mosaic law.

APPLICATION:  May it not be that many with far fewer graces are superior to you in the practice of virtue? Fear lest our Lord should punish your ingratitude.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  I lifted up my hands to thy commandments, which I loved. And I was exercised in thy justifications. (Ps. cxviii, 48.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  in what the Gospel law principally demands greater perfection from all who are Christians. It is in love of our neighbour. In the Mosaic law it was forbidden to harm one’s neighbour in his goods or person: that of the Gospel not only forbids us to harm our neighbour by scornful or hurtful words, but even to nourish in the interior of our hearts and kind of rancour or distain against him. Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment. (Matt. v, 22.) Such is the high standard of charity proposed to all!

APPLICATION:  How much do you deceive yourself if you are one of those who are less afraid, and make less account, of want of charity to your neighbour than of some other failings. Do you not often cherish bitterness in your heart without even striving to banish it altogether?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacles? Or who shall rest in thy holy hill? He that speaketh truth in his heart: who hath not used deceit in his tongue. (Ps. xiv, 1-3.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY how strongly God insists that you should banish from your heart all rancour against your brethren and preserve perfect charity. For He desires you, if you were about to offer a gift at the altar, or to say Holy Mass, and should then remember that you have wronged any one, or that you are harbouring rancour in your heart against your brother, to go and be reconciled to him, not only interiorly but also exteriorly, and then return to offer your gift or sacrifice at the altar. He shows thereby that He desires this act of charity towards your brother more than the act of honour which you owe to Him.

APPLICATION: Does not all this suffice to make you esteem the value of union and charity with your neighbour more highly than any other virtue?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  For the sake of my brethren, and my neighbour, I spoke peace of thee. (Ps. cxxi, 8.)

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MONDAY AFTER THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST` ~ THE LAST JUDGMENT

The hour cometh wherein all that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that have done good things shall come forth unto the resurrection of life, but they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment. (John v, 28, 29.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY how loudly that great trumpet of the archangel St. Michael will resound. It will be heard by all, and will call forth every one from the tomb, summoning them to appear in the valley of Jehosaphat. The trumpet of the archangel will be at once a declaration of war to the reprobate and of triumph to the elect. To those who now will not listen to the voice of God, which conveys to us His inspirations, nor attend to the voice of His ministers, the trumpet in that last day will sound the note of war. It will be a burst of triumph and gladness for those who now close not their ears to the voice of God.

APPLICATION:  Unhappy then will you be if now you despise the voice of your God. The voice of that trumpet will then be to you most terrible!

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Thou art terrible and you shall resist thee? From that time of wrath. Thou hast caused judgment to be heard from heaven: the earth trembled and was still. (Ps. lxxv, 8,9.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that at that sound all the dead will come forth from their graves, rich and poor, wise and ignorant. But with what difference! The elect will come forth with their bodies no longer enfeebled by labour or sickness or penance but more glorious: the reprobate with their bodies so loathsome and repulsive that to re-enter them will be one of their greatest punishments. What diversity too the sentiment will the different souls have towards their bodies? How the reprobate will curse the immoderate love they bore to them! How the elect will rejoice at the penance which they gave them to suffer! Even more painful will be the separation that the angels will make between the elect and the reprobate: The angels shall go out and shall separate the wicked from among the just. (Matt. xii, 49.) The good shall rise on high in order to go to Christ: They shall be taken up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air. (1 Thess. Iv, 16 ) The reprobate will remain below amid the earth’s desolation. Oh what wailing! Oh what cries of those who during their lives were wont to rule and to command, in seeing themselves on that day so abased!

APPLICATION: Will you not rather regard it as a great boon and blessing to live now a humble and rigorous life, in order to merit the blessed lot which on that tremendous day will fall to the elect, and escape the lot of the reprobate?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   God arose in judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. (Ps. lxxv, 10.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that there is no other reason assigned for the difference of their destiny, than that of the works done in this life. Those who have striven to do good, who have done good things, be they unknown, or poor or ignorant shall come forth unto the resurrection of life. Those who have done evil, be they wealthy, noble, princes or monarchs will come forth unto the resurrection of judgment and be sentenced to eternal punishment.

APPLICATION: What say you to this, you who perhaps hold all else in esteem except the doing of good works? In that last awful day you will recognise how much better is one only act of virtue, than all the grandeur, all the wisdom of the most learned in the world. For on that day nothing will be held inn esteem but good works, nothing will then be punished but evil deeds. From this learn what alone you should now fear, and what alone you should now value most highly.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  At thy rebuke they shall flee, at the voice of thy thunder they shall fear. (Ps. ciii, 7.)

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TUESDAY AFTER THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST~ ABIDING SORROW FOR SIN

Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much. (Luke vii, 47.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that David, when truly repentant of his sin, heard the forgiveness of God pronounced by the mouth of the prophet Nathan, who said to him: The Lord hath also taken away thy sin. (2 Kings xii, 13,) He was intimately assured of its remission. And yet, after such a certain assurance, he did not then cease to mourn his fall but repeatedly asked and besought God’s pardon: Wash me yet more from my iniquity. (Ps. l, 4.)

APPLICATION:  How do you act who not only are not certain, but perhaps even most uncertain whether God has forgiven your sins? How many tears till now have you shed to wash away your sins? What penance have you done for them? Think how many nights of tears one sin only cost David, although he knew that he was pardoned: Every night I will was my bed with my tears. (Ps. vi, 7.) And does it seem to you that you have just once asked pardon in confession for so many sins, for which you cannot be certain that you are yet perfectly forgiven?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sins. (Ps. l, 4.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that after receiving pardon David continued ever to detest his sin, saying, Wash me yet more. For in order to be perfectly pure and clean it is not enough that the sin be remitted, but it is necessary that all the remains of past sin be removed, and the danger of future evil be taken away.

APPLICATION: Oh if you did but know the evil propensities that each one of your sins still leaves in you, though it be confessed and pardoned! Then you would not think you had made satisfaction in having once wept over it. You would continue to weep over it and heartily detest it. For sin, although already pardoned, can work immense harm by the bad effects it leaves in the soul. Be not without fear about sin forgiven. (Ecclus. v, 5.) See you not how many evil effects original sin still works in you, although you have been cleanse from it by holy baptism? Every personal sin works in you similar harm although forgiven by the sacrament of penance.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Turn away thy face from my sins: and blot out all my iniquities. (Ps. l, 11.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that the repentant David set himself purposely to consider and to re-consider the gravity of the sin he had committed. Hence he could never cease to weep for it, and to cleanse his soul ever more and more: For I know my iniquity. Just as it is impossible to know clearly some object supremely good and not love it intensely, so it is likewise impossible to recognise an infinite evil such as sin is, and not hate it immensely.

AAPPLICATION:  Why is it that you do not still grieve for the sins you have already confessed? It is because you do not realise their gravity. Begin seriously to reflect on the great malice which these sins contain. Then you will never cease to detest and to weep over them. The sin of David was ever before his eyes, reproaching him always with the ingratitude he had shown towards God for the sake of so base a sin. You on the contrary put away remembrance of your past sins, and therefore reap not from them the salutary fruits of compunction and of humility.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me. (Ps. l, 5.)

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WEDNESDAY AFTER THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ SELF WILL

I seek not my own will but the will of him that sent me. (John v, 3o..)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that the chief reason why even spiritual people love to do their own will is because they hope thereby to find quiet. And yet in effect it is quite the contrary. There is nothing which can so produce trouble and disturbance within you as the following of your own will. You will always be in doubt whether it is better to do things in one way or in another, whether to do this or do that, whether to sleep or to watch. And the more you reflect, the more you are at a loss.

APPLICATION:  If you would live in quiet and peace, resolve not to live according to your own whims and ways. Submit your will in all things to the precepts and laws of the Church and to your lawful superiors.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Much peace have they that love thy law. (Ps. cxviii, 6.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that another reason, for which you love to do your own will, is in order to obtain not only peace but also the esteem and praise of men, as if it were base to do the will of another, and noble to do one’s own. And yet it works out just the contrary way. He shall be confounded in his own will says God by the Prophet Osee. (Os. x, 6.) For God seeing men too much set on gratifying their own inclinations, which like untamed horses lead them to the edge of the precipice, arrests their course and casts them prostrate to the ground.

APPLICATION:  You seek perhaps to obtain for yourself a prominent post, an employment, an honour, hoping to succeed therein with credit and with glory to yourself. If God loves you much, He will give you just the very opposite, because if you succeeded it would be far too dangerous for you. You would thus become more attached to your own will, and this would do you still more harm. If you wish to be guided by your own will, you will never be at peace: You will shall be confounded in your own will.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Thou, O Lord, art my protector, my glory … I have cried to the Lord with my voice: and he hath heard me from his holy hill. (Ps. iii, 4, 5.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY the great happiness of a life which one lives in constant if not perpetual obedience. It does away with all disturbance; it makes it possible to enjoy real peace and quiet, provided one obeys fully from the heart.

APPLICATION:  Whether you do little penance for your sins or much, whether you study or labour, whether you be employed in this office or that, you are by obedience always sure of doing that whish is most pleasing to God, and of acquiring for yourself also greater esteem and glory both here and hereafter. Now is not this an immense blessing of itself: He that keepeth the commandments shall find no evil. (Ecclus. viii, 5.)

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  I have restrained my feet from every evil way: that I may keep thy words. I have not declined from thy judgments: because thou hast set me a law. (Ps. cxviii, 101, 102.)

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THURSDAY AFTER THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ THE SHORT COMBAT OF LIFE

In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world. (John xvi, 33.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that like a soldier you are placed in this world in order to fight against three great enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil. If they do not perpetually assault you, at least they oblige you to be continually armed and always prepared. If they seem to you to grant you a little truce, they return to assault more furiously than ever.

APPLICATION:  Therefore you must ever be in fear and trembling, as if the battle were always impending. Never hope for peace. All the days I am in warfare, says holy job. (Job xiv, 14.)

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Deliver me, O Lord; they have devised iniquities in their hearts, all the day long they designed battles. (Ps. cxxxix, 1, 3.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that you should not on that account be dismayed or discouraged, for it is only a question of a short time. Such a warfare fills you with alarm because you imagine, as most do, that you have to live a long life through many years. Think rather the contrary as the same holy Job did, who in everything that happened to him, remembered the shortness of his life. Sometimes he compared it to the passage of a courier who seems as it were to fly, and again to a leaf or a flower that in a moment is dried up and is withered. The very thought that the warfare will end soon, will also animate you to bear with the invincible patience the troubles thereof.

APPLICATION:  Perhaps you have accustomed yourself to do the opposite and therefore it is that you feel yourself depressed. O how much shorter your life may be than you think! Behold I come quickly, hold fast that which thou hast. (Apoc. Iii, 11.)

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  My days are vanished like smoke, my days have gone down like a shadow, and I am withered like the grass. (Ps. ci, 4, 12.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that in order the more efficaciously to animate yourself to bear present trials, you should not only remember the shortness of this life, but you should consider the change that will succeed after you pass from this warfare to the kingdom of heaven and to the throne won by the merits of the warfare. Holy Job said that he awaited until my change comes. This change you also should look forward to. Now you condition is one of labour, of fear and of weariness; hereafter it will be one of repose, of security and of joy, for such is the happy state of paradise! It is certain that if you fully realised the happiness of such a state, you would live ever in a holy impatience to reach the hour of your change.

APPLICATION: That you with holy Job calmly await this change, it behoves you to live well every day of your life, as death may come to you on any day. Live so that you may not be of the number of those who do not merely await death, but rather fear it.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   Blessed is he whom thou hast chosen and taken to thee: he shall dwell in thy courts. We shall be filled with the good things of thy house: holy is thy temple. (Ps. lxiv, 5.)

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FRIDAY AFTER THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ JESUS HANGING ON THE CROSS

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so must the Son of man be lifted up. (John iii, 14.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that Jesus Christ hung upon a cross as did the brazen serpent in the wilderness. This brazen serpent was not capable of causing death as do real serpents, but was only a serpent in appearance, fashioned in the furnace: nevertheless by looking upon it those bitten by real serpents were healed. Similarly Christ, Himself sinless, by the heat of the furnace also, that is to say the furnace of His excessive love, took the form of a sinner and hung on the cross for the healing of all of us who are bitten by the serpents of our own sins, that by looking on Him hanging thereon we may be cured.

APPLICATION:  Fix then your gaze upon this your Saviour, so that you may be made whole. And if you are not completely healed it is only a sign that you have not kept your eyes well fixed upon Him. He hangs there for love of you in supreme poverty and destitution, utterly despised, and in most bitter pain.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Behold, O God our protector: and look on the face of the Christ. (Ps. lxxxiii, 10.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY that Christ called this hanging as a guilty criminal upon the cross His exaltation. He counts it as brining Him not opprobrium but glory, remaining on the cross for love of you: The Son of man must be lifted up, etc. But why must? Would He perchance have lost some degree of greatness and of glory, if He had not thus endured such ignominy and suffering for you? Or would He not have been equally blessed, if you had been so unhappy as to lose your soul?

APPLICATION:  How is it then that you are not astounded and amazed at this excess and refinement of love? Why are you not filled with confusion on seeing that your God, your Redeemer, counts it as an honour to suffer thus on your behalf? And are you so little willing to suffer anything for love of that Lord, Who gloried so much to die on the cross for the love of you?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  The council of the wicked hath besieged me; they have pierced my hands and feet, they have numbered all my bones. (Ps. xxi, 17, 18.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that it is said that the serpent in the desert was lifted up for a sign. Set it up for a sign. (Num. xxi, 8.) So Christ likewise hangs on the cross for a sign, because He is there for a sign, whereby each one must hope to obtain salvation. And as He is a sign, so also is He the standard, the glorious standard of the faithful who profess to serve under His banner. A good soldier never loses sight of his standard, never ceases to follow whithersoever it is borne.

APPLICATION: You as a Christian make special profession of being a soldier of Christ crucified. Hence you must keep your eyes turned towards the glorious standard of the cross, and to the utmost of your power follow close to Jesus crucified. Thus you will be a Christian in very truth and not in name or in appearance only.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  He saved them from the hand of them that hated them: he redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. (Ps. cv, 10.)

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SATURDAY AFTER THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ TEMPTATION

Why sleep you? Arise, pray lest you enter into temptation. (Luke xxii, 46.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that to be tempted is the lot of all who serve God, and more particularly is it the lot of beginners. And it is to prepare for this that Ecclesiasticus exhorts in these words: Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation. (Ecclus. ii, 1.) Now if the more advanced in years must suffer even the most severe temptations, it is not possible for the beginners to be free from them, because of the rage of the devil in seeing them on the point of escaping from his hands. Consequently as the former must always live in fear and be prepared for temptation, much more should the beginners fear, that they may remain firm in their resolve to serve God.

APPLICATION:  Stand in justice and in fear: in justice, by doing good works and meriting thereby the protection of the Lord: in fear, by total distrust in yourself.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice unto him with trembling. (Ps. ii, 11.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that the first preparation you should make for this combat is to understand the devices of the tempter. They are usually similar to those with which the evil one assaulted Christ in the desert. The devil in the desert suggested to Christ first the lesser sin, then the greater, and finally the gravest of all. Seeing Him wearied and worn by the long fast, he exhorted Him to restore His strength by a miracle. Then, foiled in his first attack, he tempted Him in the second, to show by vainglory how greatly He trusted in the help of God in all His difficulties, by throwing Himself down from the temple as if He had no need to take care of His own life. Finally, he tempted Him in the third time to ambition, offering Him the possession of the whole world, if he would adore him.

APPLICATION:  Thus then does the devil assault those who give themselves up to the service of God. He sets before them their own weakness and the greater strictness of life which they have undertaken, and tempts them to pusillanimity. [pusillanimity means showing a lack of courage or determination; timidity.] He makes them think that without a manifest miracle they cannot live thus. And if by fervour of spirit they despise the temptation, he tempts them to an indiscreet ill-treatment of themselves. He induces them thus to presumption, in order that they may grow weary under the burden, and give up altogether. When all this does not succeed, he puts before their eyes the liberty and happiness which may be enjoyed in a worldly life, the dignities and the grandeur they hope for. Thus he tempts them to a kind of apostasy from God. This is the way of the tempter: he leads up to the greatest sin by little by little. If then you have resisted his first assaults, never rest secure, but prepare for still fiercer attacks.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Arise, O Lord, disappoint him and supplant him; deliver my soul from the wicked one: the sword from the enemies of thy hand. (Ps. xvi, 13, 14.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that you should learn from Christ the art of repelling these assaults. Christ did not set Himself to dispute with the evil one. He rejected him, each of the three times, with strength, with promptness, and with few words. In like manner we too must beware of arguing with those imaginations, wherein the devil has hidden himself in order to give battle. When he tempts you to be pusillanimous and to relax a stricter rule of life, say to him: Not in bread alone doth man live. That which our Lord shall provide for me is quiet sufficient for me. When he tempts you presumptuously to yield to the stimulus of extraordinary help, say to him: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when Lastly he tempts you to ambition and fallacious hopes, put him at once to flight and say: Begone Satan.

APPLICATION: Ever bear in mind that the evil one will represent to you all the most attractive and the best things of the world, promising what he cannot give, in order to flatter and to ensnare you. He will however hide from you all the bitterness, the heart-breaking and all the evils that he will cause you, and all the misery that with his malicious lying he desires for you.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Thou hast been my hope: a tower of strength against the face of the enemy. (Ps. lx, 4.)

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