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N° 155 - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
The right way of serving humbles the one who acts. It does not assume a position of superiority over others, even if the latter's situation may be miserable at that moment. Christ took the lowest place in the world—the cross—and, precisely through this radical humility, he redeemed us and constantly helps us. Those who can help recognize that it is precisely in this way that they too are helped. Being able to help is neither their merit nor a claim to pride. This task is a grace.
The more a person works for others, the more they will understand and make their own Christ's words: "We are unremarkable servants." Indeed, they recognize that they act not out of superiority or greater personal effectiveness, but because the Lord has given them this gift. Sometimes, the increase in needs and the limitations of her own actions may expose her to the temptation of discouragement. But it is precisely then that the knowledge that she is, ultimately, only an instrument in the Lord's hands will help her; she will thus free herself from the pretension of having to achieve, personally and alone, the necessary improvement of the world.
Humbly, she will do what she can and humbly entrust the rest to the Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we. We offer him only our services, as far as we can, and as long as he gives us the strength. However, doing what we can, with the strength at our disposal, is the task that keeps the good servant of Jesus Christ always on the move: "The love of Christ urges us on" (2 Cor 5:14).
Benedict XVI - pope from 2005 to 2013
Encyclical “Deus caritas est”, § 35 (trans. © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
N° 154 - 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
The right way of serving humbles the one who acts. It does not assume a position of superiority over others, even if the latter's situation may be miserable at that moment. Christ took the lowest place in the world—the cross—and, precisely through this radical humility, he redeemed us and constantly helps us. Those who can help recognize that it is precisely in this way that they too are helped. Being able to help is neither their merit nor a claim to pride. This task is a grace.
The more a person works for others, the more they will understand and make their own Christ's words: "We are unremarkable servants." Indeed, they recognize that they act not out of superiority or greater personal effectiveness, but because the Lord has given them this gift. Sometimes, the increase in needs and the limitations of her own actions may expose her to the temptation of discouragement. But it is precisely then that the knowledge that she is, ultimately, only an instrument in the Lord's hands will help her; she will thus free herself from the pretension of having to achieve, personally and alone, the necessary improvement of the world.
Humbly, she will do what she can and humbly entrust the rest to the Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we. We offer him only our services, as far as we can, and as long as he gives us the strength. However, doing what we can, with the strength at our disposal, is the task that keeps the good servant of Jesus Christ always on the move: "The love of Christ urges us on" (2 Cor 5:14).
Benedict XVI - pope from 2005 to 2013
Encyclical “Deus caritas est”, § 35 (trans. © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
N° 153 - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
Through your creative nature a house was built for the thinking being; the first man was made steward of this earthly house here below. And his descendants who came into being receive from you various stewardships: some for the most glorious bodily works, and others to distribute spiritual goods. (…)
You have also placed as faithful steward of the body and the soul, the incorporeal spirit to give to each one what it needs with care, according to its rank: by nourishing the soul with the Word and by caring for the body with sobriety; and between the two, acting as arbiter, it maintains their rank in rectitude.
The body must be ranked as a servant according to your order of creation, and the soul, as a sovereign princess, according to the image of your Archetype.
But I, unfaithful to both, to my own soul and to that of others, have become like the unfaithful steward, who is the type of my cowardice.
This is because, at the end of my life here below, I can neither do good nor beg from those who possess it, for I am ashamed because they will not give me.
But You, liberal in all things, give regret to my impenitent soul, to return to You completely, before I am called to the Judgment Seat, for the judgment of my sins; to forgive me at least part of the debt: to my soul, the fifty measures of oil, to my body, the twenty measures of wheat.
Grant me, also, the grace like the steward to be worthy of Your praise; although I am a son of the world, give me the wisdom to convert from sin!
Saint Nerses Snorhali (1102-1173) - Armenian Patriarch
Second part, § 605-623; SC 20 (Jesus, Only Son of the Father, trans. I. Kéchichian, ed. du Cerf, 1973; p. 158-161)
N° 152 - THE GLORIOUS CROSS - Year C
Not only do we not have to be ashamed of the death of our Lord God, but we should draw from it the greatest confidence and pride. By receiving from us the death he found in us, he most faithfully promised to give us in him the life that we could not have on our own. And if he who is without sin loved us so much that he suffered for us sinners what we deserved in our sin, how will he not, who justifies us, give us what is righteousness? How will he not, who is faithful to his promises and who bore the penalty for the guilty, give their reward? Let us acknowledge without trembling, my brothers, and proclaim that Christ was crucified for us. Let us say it without fear and with joy, without shame and with pride. The apostle Paul saw it, he who made it a title of glory. After recalling the many great graces he received from Christ, he does not say that he glories in these marvels, but he says: "As for me, God forbid that I should boast anywhere but in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal 6:14).
Saint Augustine (354-430)
Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Treatise on the Passion of the Lord, 1-2: PLS 2, 545-546 (in Christian Readings for Our Time, sheet F17; trans. Orval; © 1971 Orval Abbey)
N° 151 - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
Let us proclaim with joy and pride that Christ was crucified for us!
Not only do we not have to be ashamed of the death of our Lord God, but we should draw from it the greatest confidence and the greatest pride.
By receiving from us the death that he found in us, he most faithfully promised to give us in him the life that we could not have on our own.
And if he who is without sin loved us so much that he suffered for us sinners what we would have deserved by our sin, how will he not give us what is righteousness, he who justifies us?
How will he not give the righteous their reward, he who is faithful to his promises and who suffered the penalty for the guilty?
Let us acknowledge without trembling, my brothers, and proclaim that Christ was crucified for us.
Let us say it without fear and with joy, without shame and with pride.
The apostle Paul saw it, he who made it a title of glory. After recalling the many great graces he received from Christ, he does not say that he glories in these marvels, but he says: "As for me, God forbid that I should boast anywhere but in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal 6:14).
Saint Augustine (354-430)
Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Treatise on the Passion of the Lord, 1-2: PLS 2, 545-546 (in Christian Readings for Our Time, sheet F17; trans. Orval; © 1971 Orval Abbey)
N° 150 - 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
"God has taken such a low place that no one could be lower than Him."
The Incarnation has its source in the goodness of God… But, one thing appears first, so marvelous, so sparkling, so astonishing, that it shines like a dazzling sign: it is the infinite humility contained in such a mystery… God, the Being, the Infinite, the Perfect, the Creator, the Almighty, immense, sovereign Master of all, becoming man, uniting himself to a human soul and body, and appearing on earth as a man and the last of men… And the esteem of the world, what is it? Was it fitting that God should seek it? Seeing the world from the heights of divinity, everything is equal in His eyes: the great, the small, everything is equally ant, earthworm… Disdaining all these false greatnesses which are, in truth, such extreme pettiness, God did not want to clothe Himself with them… And as He came to earth both to redeem us and to teach us, and to make Himself known and loved, He wanted to give us, from His entry into this world and throughout His life, this lesson of contempt for human greatness, of complete detachment from the esteem of men… He was born, He lived, He died in the deepest abjection and the ultimate opprobrium, having once and for all taken the lowest place so much that no one could ever be lower than Him… And if He occupied with such constancy, such care, this last place, it is to instruct us, to teach us that men and the esteem of men are nothing, worth nothing; (…) it is to teach us that our conversation not being of this world, we must make no account of the figure of this world…, but live only for this kingdom of heaven which the God-Man saw even here below by the beatific vision, and which we must consider constantly with the eyes of faith, walking in this world as if we were not of this world, without concern for external things, occupying ourselves with only one thing: to look at, to love our Heavenly Father, and to do His will…
Saint Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916)
hermit and missionary in the Sahara.
Retreat in Nazareth (Spiritual Writings of Charles de Foucauld, hermit in the Sahara, apostle of the Tuaregs; Ed. J. de Gigord, 1964; p. 54-55)
N° 149 - 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
“Make every effort to enter through the narrow gate” (Lk 13:24)
We can have nothing stable in a world where we came only to pass through, and for us, to live is to leave life and pass through each day. (…)
This mutability, man does not only undergo in his body, but in his soul as well, when he strives to rise towards the best.
For under the weight of its mutability the soul is constantly carried towards something other than it is, and if it is not held in its first state by the strict discipline of vigilance, it slides constantly towards the worst.
For by abandoning the one who remains constantly, it has lost the stability it could have retained.
So now its effort towards the best is only a rise against the current.
And if it relaxes in its intention to rise, there it is effortlessly brought back to the depths.
Yes, going up is effort and going down relaxation, and it is through the narrow gate that we will enter, the Lord reminds us: "Make every effort," he says, "to enter through the narrow gate." (Lk 13:24)
At the moment when he is about to speak of entering through the narrow gate, he says first: "Make every effort," because, without fervent contention of the spirit, the flood of this world is invincible, constantly bringing the soul back to baseness.
Saint Gregory the Great (c. 540-604)
Pope and Doctor of the Church
Book XI, SC 212 (Morals on Job, trans. A. Bocognano, ed. du Cerf, 1974; pp. 139-141, rev.)
N° 148 - 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
"I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" Luke 12:9
Our Lord Jesus Christ lives on earth in souls and grows in them according to the operations of his grace, as he once did in his childhood conversing with his Mother, and he continues his interior life in us when we are his alone. What he began in himself, he continues in his Church, so that the divine life which he communicates to her and which is so glorious to God his Father, will never have an end in eternity. He desires that the whole earth be full of fire, and he has sent it down here only that it may devour the world (cf. Lk 12:49). (…)
There is nothing sweeter, nor gives more rest and consolation to the soul, than to be caught up out of oneself by Jesus Christ and by his divine Spirit, who does not need for this the fiery chariot of Elijah (cf. 2 Kgs 2:11); but which, by its power alone, raises us from the earth into heaven, and from the depths of ourselves transports us into the bosom of God.
I would be unfaithful to Jesus if I did not constantly press your soul to prevent it from resting for a single moment on itself.
Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-1657) - founder of the Sulpicians
Spiritual Readings, 44 (in Christian Readings for Our Time,
file W58; trans. Orval; © 1973 Orval Abbey)
N° 147 - 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
“Blessed are you among women” (Luke 1:42)
Who will worthily celebrate the praises of her most holy assumption?
Who can tell with what happiness she left her body, with what happiness she saw her Son, with what joy she advanced towards the Lord, surrounded by the choirs of angels, borne along by the eager zeal of the apostles, while she contemplated the King in his beauty and saw her child awaiting him in glory, free from all sorrow as she had been free from all stain?
She left the abode of her body to dwell eternally with Christ. She passed into the vision of God, and her blessed soul, brighter than the sun, higher than the heavens, nobler than the angels, she breathed it out to the Lord. (...)
Is this not life, when one goes to the source of life? and from life one draws eternal life in an incessant flow? Before her departure, the Virgin Mother had already drunk from this inexhaustible source so that, in her very passage, she would not be touched by the taste of death, even the slightest. Therefore, in going out, she saw life, so well that she did not see death. She saw her Son, so well that she did not suffer separation from the flesh. So, rushing forth, liberated, into such a blessed vision and quenching her thirst in the face, so desired, of God, she found the venerable inhabitants of heaven ready to serve and guide her.
Saint Amadeus of Lausanne (1108-1159) - Cistercian monk, later bishop
Marian Homily VII, SC 72 (Eight Marian Homilies, trans. Dom A. Dumas, Ed. du Cerf, Paris 1960, pp. 197-199, rev.)