ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Jesus aligns himself with those who do simple, anonymous acts of love. Who can know precisely where in the wide world all the many such acts of self-giving take place? Where someone gives greater weight to his neighbor than to his own importance? Such things remain in the mystery of God. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Who Is a Christian?

There is no true virtue without simplicity and humility. Simplicity makes us forget our own lights, and humility persuades us that everyone has more light than we. A really humble person sees only her own faults and not those of others. What a wretched occupation it is to be always examining what others do! Let us prefer rather to be blind and without judgment than to use our powers to consider and judge the actions of our neighbor. A heart that is full of love of God occupies itself quite differently; it only thinks of suffering for him whom it loves, and it loves all those who give it an opportunity of suffering for its Beloved.   Beware of listening to the murmuring of others. Pay attention to yourself, and you will see that you will live far more happily and that God will dwell in you and find his delight in you. SAINT CLAUDE DE LA COLOMBIÈRE

…when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being ‘in Christ’ or of Christ being ‘in them’, this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts—that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution—a biological or superbiological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why he uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does no...

  St Thomas Aquinas:  “The Eucharist is the sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.” St Euphrasia:  “To speak of the Blessed Sacrament is to speak of what is most sacred. How often, when we are in a state of distress, those to whom we look for help leave us; or what is worse, add to our affliction by heaping fresh troubles upon us. He is ever there, waiting to help us.” St Pio of Pietrelcina:  “A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.” St Angela of Foligno:  “If we paused for a moment to consider attentively what takes place in this Sacrament, I am sure that the thought of Christ’s love for us would transform the coldness of our hearts into a fire of love and gratitude.”

Wis 1:13-15; 2:23-24/2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15/Mk 5:21-43 Today’s Gospel narrative of the radical healing of the daughter of the synagogue official Jairus is divided into two parts which are separated by the healing of the woman who had lived with a hemorrhage for twelve years.   The most significant theme that ties these two narratives together is, I believe, the theme of death. As the narrative opens, the young girl is on the point of death. The woman is suffering from a constant discharge of blood. As the Book of Leviticus says, “The life of every creature is its blood” (17:14). Plagued by this hemorrhage, life is perpetually draining away from her, she is enfeebled and always moving toward death. According to mosaic law, she is in a perpetual state of ritual impurity. Everything she touches, lies or sits on becomes unclean. Others avoid contact with her since touching her would make them unclean. If she’s married, sexual relations for her and her husband are forbidden. Worst of all, ...

Simon was born in Bethsaida, near the Sea of Galilee. He and his brother Andrew were fishermen, accepting Jesus’ invitation to become His first disciples and “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). John’s Gospel has Andrew following Jesus first and bringing Simon to Him. Jesus tells Simon, “‘You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas (which is translated Peter)” (John 1:42). In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter when He said to him, “I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:18–19). Peter emerged as the Church’s central leader after Pentecost. For a decade in Jerusalem, he preached, performed miracles, and converted many. He then traveled to Rome, established the Church there, and became its first...

If, then, you are God's workmanship, await the hand of your Maker which creates everything in due time; in due time as far as you are concerned, whose creation is being carried out. Offer to Him your heart in a soft and tractable state, and preserve the form in which the Creator has fashioned you, having moisture in yourself, lest, by becoming hardened, you lose the impressions of His fingers. But by preserving the framework you shall ascend to that which is perfect, for the moist clay which is in you is hidden [there] by the workmanship of God. His hand fashioned your substance; He will cover you over [too] within and without with pure gold and silver, and He will adorn you to such a degree, that even "the King Himself shall have pleasure in your beauty."  SAINT IRENAEUS