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FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER ~ DETACHMENT

(Read John xvi, 5-14.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that the Apostles when they heard from their divine Master that He was about to leave them and to depart from this world, were at once seized with sorrow and oppressed by sadness, because they understood not where He was going, nor sought they to find out why He was going. Had they but clearly understood how advantageous for then was this departure of the beloved Master, most assuredly they would have rejoiced and have been consoled. 

APPLICATION:  So has it happened with you. Feeling yourself assailed by some trouble, or seeing that you must leave some particular work or place, you are at once distressed and disturbed. You grieve at being deprived of certain advantages or at leaving some of your friends, but you reflect not on the great benefit which will result to you thereby. If you would but learn to resign yourself to God's will, and to what He knows to be best for you, you would then be consoled instead of being sad.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: There also shall they hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. (Ps. cxxxviii, 10.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  what Christ said to the Apostles in order to comfort them. It is expedient to you that I go. It is for your good that I should depart, because if I do not leave you and return to My Father, the Holy Spirit cannot be given to you in all the fullness of His gifts. It must needs be that I first take possession of My Kingdom and then open the treasury of heavenly gifts. If I go not the Paraclete will not come to you, but if I go I will send Him to you.

APPLICATION:  The privation of the consoling visible presence of Jesus, was to gain for the Apostles the great benefit of receiving within their own souls the invisible presence of the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier. How much more to your profit it often is that you be deprived of sensible consolations in prayer, and still more than that you lose that miserable comfort which you crave from creatures, in order that you may more fully receive the Holy Spirit the comforter Who will enrich you with His gifts! It is expedient to you that I go.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  I remembered, O Lord, thy judgments of old: and I was comforted. (Ps. cxviii, 52.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY what was the reason why Christ said to the Apostles that the Holy Spirit would not come to them if He did not go away. In the cenacle He had imparted to each of them the Holy Spirit when He said: Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them. (John xx, 22-23.) Why then was the Holy Spirit not to be given in all His plenitude whilst our Blessed Lord was still on earth? The reason is because this fullness was to be bestowed upon the Apostles, in order that they should go and preach to all nations the Name and the power of Christ. Now, however, whilst He was visible amongst them they would not have been able to leave the visible presence of their Lord so easily, and to separate themselves from Him to go and preach to the Medes and Parthians and other nations. Therefore it was necessary that they should be detached even from that affection, though so good in itself, which bound them to Jesus, in order that they might be the more ready to go forth and announce the gospel to the whole world.

APPLICATION:   Now if this love of the Apostles, and this personal attachment top our Blessed Redeemer was an impediment to the coming of the Holy Spirit to them, how much greater hindrance to you are those less praiseworthy affections and inordinate attachments which keep your heart bound to creatures? It is essential that you should keep yourself detached from everything created if you would fully enjoy the Creator of all.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:.  Turn away my eyes lest they behold vanity. (Ps. cxviii, 37.)

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MONDAY AFTER THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER ~ EFFICACY OF PRAYER

If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good spirit to them that ask him. (Luke xi, 13.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY the great mistake you make in complaining that God does not hear you, whereas in reality He is more desirous to give than you to receive. To convince you therefore of your error our Lord would have you here consider that if an earthly father has not the heart to refuse his son that which he asks for his good, far less does your heavenly Father know how to refuse the requests which you make to Him.

APPLICATION:. Should not such reasoning serve to take from you all distrust? Could you doubt as to your prayers being heard, if you would but carefully remember the difference there is between an earthly father and your Father Who is in heaven.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: . He shall cry out to me: Thou art my father, my God, and the support of my salvation. (Ps. lxxxviii, 27.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that every son is less a son in respect to his earthly father than he is to his heavenly Father. His earthly father is only a father of part of his being, namely his body. Consequently he does not love him with a full and a perfect love. Our heavenly Father, on the contrary, is the father of or entire being, and of our body as its first cause. He breathed a soul into it and thus produced a perfect human being. Moreover your earthy father is merely your nature father. God is not only your natural  but also your supernatural father, having raised you in the order of grace to His marvellous and divine sonship.

APPLICATION:  If then your heavenly Father loves you infinitely more than your earthly father can do, will He not also be far more willing to hear and grant your petitions? Add to this, that your heavenly Father, because He is infinitely rich in nowise impoverished by what He bestows upon you, and because He is infinitely happy rejoices in nothing so much as to make you happy. On the other hand, an earthly father in giving to his son that which he has earned by the sweat of his brow deprives himself of that which he gives. Now therefore if an earthly father, in such needs himself, gives willingly to his own children whatever they ask of him that may be for their good, how much more readily and bountifully will our heavenly Father give us what we ask?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear him. (Ps. cii, 13.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that if your prayers are not heard at once, you must not complain of this, but should rather accuse yourself of not asking of God that which is for your true good: Your Father in heaven will give the good spirit to them that ask him. It is this good and holy spirit that God desires above all things to give you, the spirit of charity, the spirit of humility, the spirit of obedience and so likewise of all the rest, the good spirit, in a word, that shall speed you to the gates of paradise.

APPLICATION:  If therefore you ask for the good spirit in the proper manner, do not doubt that God will give it to you. If you ask other things, such as temporal goods, He will give them only when they will prove helpful in order to lead you to your home in heaven. He says: He will give the good spirit, not He gives. Hence if your prayer is not immediately granted, you must not think that your petitions are rejected. He knows the right time and therefore wills that you should go on persevering in prayer, even as a father does with his tenderly beloved son, when he defers to grant what he asks, because he rejoices to see him pleading before him.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   Thy good spirit shall lead me into the right land. (Ps. cxlii, 10.)

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TUESDAY AFTER THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER ~ ETERNAL HAPPINESS

Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, ... and you joy no man shall take from you. (John xvi, 20-21)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that however much you may have to suffer, you must not lose heart. It may be that you must suffer in the work or in the place which providence has assigned to you, but it is only for a time. Temptation will end, adversities will end, humiliations will end, perhaps even before the end of your life which is after all so short. And then will come happiness immense in its greatness and infinite in its duration.

APPLICATION:  Is not the knowledge that you will thereby gain an eternal reward of happiness enough to animate you to bear with patience the labours that you may have to endure for a short time here?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear. (Ps. xvi, 15..)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that you should not be desirous of rejoicing now, because this is not your time for rejoicing. Be content that it is to come. Observe how it is with the tree in winter time. Wretched looking, covered in snow, neglected and quite uncared for. Wait however a little and then see. What a profusion now of leaves! What a wealth of flowers! What perfection and abundance of fruit! So shall it be also with you. Now too it is your winter. The tree that would be impatient to bud forth and rejoice before its time, would in turn soon begin to languish. And when at the spring time the other trees would appear rejoicing in all their glory and beauty, it alone would have to remain barren and without any value at all.

APPLICATION:  So will it be with you if you are now anxious to anticipate that state which is proper only to the blessed in heaven. You are not in this world to rejoice, but to suffer and thereby to merit to rejoice hereafter. In the world ye shall have distress (John xvi, 33.), as our Blessed Lord has told you.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee. (Ps. cxxxvi, 5-6.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that our rejoicing will be in proportion to the suffering. God will bestow upon you joy just in proportion to the sacrifices you have here made for Him, and to the way you have denied yourself for love of Him. According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, thy comforts have given joy to my soul. (Ps. xciii, 19.)

APPLICATION:  Does there not perhaps lurk in your heart some want of trust in Him? Do not however doubt that He is a most faithful debtor. Rather how much will He not give you over and above what you have given Him! Instead of momentary, empty and passing pleasures, suffice it for you to know that He will give you to rejoice in all His treasures and in Himself. I am the reward exceedingly great. (Gen. xv, 1.)

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away. Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever. (Ps. lxxii, 26.)

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WEDNESDAY AFTER THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER ~ WE ARE SONS OF GOD

I ascend to my Father and to your Father. (John xx, 17.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that the testimony which the Holy Spirit gives us that we are sons of God, is not an external testimony, such as that which was given to Christ at the Jordon. The Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God. (Rom. Viii, 16.) It consists in that intimate sense of filial love of God which is infused in us, so that we detest sin purely because it is an offense against God, and we labour only to please Him and to seek His glory.

APPLICATION:  The surest sign of being a son of God consists in acting like a son and in working only from a motive of love. Happy indeed are you if you have this love in your heart.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  With my whole heart I have sought after thee. (Ps. cxviii, 10.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that being a son of God brings to you the right also of being an heir of God and joint heir with Christ. If sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ. (Rom. Viii, 17.) This inheritance is God Himself.  God does not possess riches distinct from Himself. All the riches and treasures which He enjoys in Himself He likewise gives to His sons to enjoy, without diminishing in the least the inheritance of any one of them. All participate in the same inheritance with Christ, Christ as Son by nature, we as son by adoption. Never could we have attained to this adoption if Christ had not merited it for us by His prayers, by His sweat, and by His blood.

APPLICATION:.  Is it not a marvel indeed that, whereas on one hand no human son as ever sought that his father should adopt some stranger in his own place, but from selfish desire of reigning alone has come to slay even his own brothers, Christ on the contrary willingly gave Himself unto death in order that you might reign with Him? O what ineffable love!

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Thou hast given an inheritance to them that fear thy name. (Ps. lx, 6.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that you cannot become co-heirs with Christ without labour. For eternal happiness is not an inheritance like to those of this world, which often comes to those who deserve them not nor even labour for them. Eternal happiness is given only to those who earn it by their labours and who merit it.

APPLICATION:   How much had Christ, the true and only-begotten Son of God, to endure in order to merit heaven! And do you, a son by adoption, expect to receive it as it were for nothing? In order to reign with Christ it must needs be that you suffer with Christ. If we suffer with Him. (2 Tim. Ii, 12.) But when will you ever have to suffer as Christ suffered? You shall indeed suffer with Christ, but you can never suffer as He did.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   I am poor, and in labours from my youth: and being exalted have been humbled and troubled. (Ps. lxxxvii, 16)

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THURSDAY AFTER THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER ~ SEEKING TRUE GLORY

I honour my Father, and you have dishonoured me. But I seek not my own glory. (John viii, 49-50.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY hoe prejudicial it is to a soul to be ambitious of worldly honours. For this reason alone it was that many of the greatest ones among the Jews refused to accept the faith of Christ, for, as St John says, They loved the glory of men more than the glory of God. (John xii, 43.) And this it is that also to-day makes many in like manner if not actually lose the faith, at least most undoubtedly lose that lively faith which consists in always acting according to its teachings.

APPLICATION: To act then as one of firm faith in Jesus Christ, in forgiving injuries, in yielding to others, in humbling oneself, it will be often necessary to conquer much human respect and expose oneself to many an unpleasant remark. But how can he expect to do this who idolises or at least seeks glory from men?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  I will sacrifice to thee the sacrifice of praise; and I will call upon the name of the Lord. (Ps. cxv, 17.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  how great is the folly of those who love the glory of men, notwithstanding that it so much hinders the glory that comes from God. That which comes from God is real and founded on real merit. The glory which comes from men is empty, because they know not how, or do not wish, to form a just opinion of you; it is uncertain, because it often happens that you receive blame where you had hope of praise; it is very unstable even after you have acquired it.

APPLICATION:  Would you then still desire to have this empty and frivolous glory of men, and not rather seek the glory that comes from God? If you understood aright what it means to have glory before God, what little account you would make of the glory of men! You cannot have praise before God without having at the same time praise from all the other hosts of the angels and all the choirs of the saints. Accustom yourself then not to prize other glory than that which you know by the light of faith.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  That I may be pleasing before God in the sight of the living. (Ps. lv, 13.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that you ought not ever to make any account of the esteem and glory of men, even if it does not hinder your work for the glory of God, but is joined to it in such a manner that you have the intention of pleasing God alone; for this is in truth to seek the glory which is from God alone. Therefore he who desires to become very pleasing to God, must divest himself of all affection for self, so that he seeks to please God, but not for his own advantage; he only seeks it in order to accomplish the divine will in those things commanded him. This is to love God as He loves us.

APPLICATION:   God loves us for our good, not for His own advantage. So if we work solely in order to please God alone, and to promote His glory, we shall then be loving God for His own sake, not for what we may gain.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  In God is my salvation and my glory; he is the God of my help. (Ps. lxi, 8.)

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FRIDAY AFTER THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER ~ GOOD OF ADVERSITY

Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you . . . be glad in that day and rejoice. (Luke vi, 23.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that joy  is a present good. When therefore our Lord bids us to rejoice in the hatred and reproaches and persecutions of men, and St. James tells us to esteem adversities all joy (James i, 2.), they would give us to understand that herein is included all good, because on earth true good consists in suffering much for God. And yet where are there to be found, even among the most spiritual of men, those who truly rejoice to have lost their sight or their hearing, or because they have received some great mortification or suffered a grave affront?

APPLICATION: And yet how can this be? Only because the rule of our life is not the rule of faith. Our apprehensions and our desires are governed by our senses alone. Strive always to be guided by the light of faith, and then let the foolish world suggest what it will.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: . Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Ps. xlix, 15.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that adversity brings with it every good, in that it makes us acquire the great good of patience. It worketh patience, and patience hath a perfect work. (Ibib) It gives you that perseverance which perfects and crowns all other good works. Patience makes you surmount the obstacles which you meet in persevering in the good begun, such as the depression of spirit and the attraction of the senses.

APPLICATION: Esteem therefore so great a good which adversity brings with it, giving you the patience to persevere on good works, in obedience, humility and your religious exercise, and so disposing you little by little to final perseverance; whereas without this patience you will never accomplish anything of any worth.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   Thou art my patience, O Lord: my hope, O Lord, from my youth. (Ps. lxx, 5.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that this great good of the virtue of patience is not acquired by the chance suffering of some adversity, but by him who bears many afflictions with a constant exercise of patience. Speculate as much as you will, seek reasons for being enamoured with the virtue of patience; you will never acquire it better than by practicing it. The soldier becomes brave not by studying his books, but by using the weapons he bears in his hands. The trying of your faith worketh patience. (James, ib.)

APPLICATION:   Strive then to exercise yourself in patience on all possible occasions. In order that you may do so the better in the more difficult events of life. Practice it also in the easier and more frequent occurrences, such as inn the varieties of weather or of climate, in the little annoyances that arise from your neighbour, and in similar small things which will never be wanting. Above all beg it most ardently of God from Whom all the good we have descends.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  The Lord ruleth me, and I shall want for nothing. (Ps xxii, 1.)

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SATURDAY AFTER THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER ~ DEATH AND ITS MEANING

Make to yourself a treasure in heaven which faileth not. (Luke xii, 33.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that in holy scripture death is called both an awakening and a sleep. It is an awakening for the wicked; it is a sleep and repose for the just. At death the sleep by which impenitent sinners have been miserably oppressed now suddenly ends; the unstable things which they had sought after during life now vanish like dreams; they awake to a term of punishment to which repose will never succeed. On the other hand death is a sweet sleep for the just, because it ends the long sufferings and mortifications of this life, and they begin to enjoy the repose and the fruit of their labours and of their prayers. From henceforth, said the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them. (Apoc. Xiv, 13.)

APPLICATION:  Oh how much better it is for you willingly to watch and pray in patience now, during these few days of your life, in order that you may enjoy repose in death, than to be constrained to watch and suffer for ever and ever! Lay this earnestly to heart.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  O God, my God: to thee do I watch at the break of day. For thee my soul hath thirsted. For thee my flesh longeth, O how exceedingly. (Ps. lxii, 2.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  what holy Job says of the rich man, that when he dies he shall take nothing away with him. (xxvii, 19.) Having in this life aimed only at accumulating earthly goods, at the enjoyment of pleasures and the exercise of power, none of these will help or even accompany him in death. On the other hand, he who now diligently watches in doing good works, and in serving God, will take all this along with him into the other life as to last for all eternity: Their works do follow them.

APPLICATION: Look well to what you do now. Those pursuits, those labours and those works that you now perform for God, and according to His good pleasure, will follow you and you will enjoy their fruits for all eternity. Whereas if you work for human ends or to gain earthly treasures, you shall take nothing away with you.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:   I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications for ever, for the reward. (Ps. cxviii, 112.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY what will happen after death to him who was solicitous only for present things. He will be like the dreamer who awakens from sleep and searches for those riches which but just now he possessed. He cannot discover them. They have vanished with the dream. How great then will be his anguish and affliction! His dream he will then call accursed which deceived him into taking those goods as real by which he now finds himself made so poor, and in robbing him of goods that are lasting and eternal. He will curse his own folly and his madness. How will he then wish to have in very deed attended to eternal things, but there will be no more time left. He will have opened his eyes all too late.

APPLICATION: Be careful then to remain wisely awake and not to be seeking after those things which are mere dreams. Direct your attention to the acquisition of real goods which at death will make you rejoice in an everlasting kingdom.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  All the foolish of heart were troubled. They have slept their sleep and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands. (Ps. lxxv, 6.)

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