TWO YEAR LECTIONARY

PATRISTIC VIGILS READINGS

EASTER

YEAR TWO
 Easter Monday Year II

A READING FROM A PASCHAL HOMILY ATTRIBUTED TO ST HIPPOLYTUS

Now the holy rays of the light of Christ shine forth, the pure stars of the pure Spirit rise,
the heavenly treasures of glory and divinity lie open. In this splendour the long dark night has
been swallowed up and the dreary shadows of death have vanished.
For us who believe in him a glorious day has dawned, a long unending day, the mystical
Passover symbolically celebrated by the Law and effectually accomplished by Christ, a
wonderful Passover, a miracle of divine virtue, a work of divine power. This is the true festival
and the everlasting memorial, the day upon which freedom from suffering comes from suffering,
immortality from death, life from the tomb, healing from a wound, Resurrection from the fall, and
Ascension into heaven from the descent into hell.
To show that he had power over death Christ had exercised his royal authority to loose
deaths bonds even during his lifetime, as for example when he gave the commands, Lazarus,
come out and Arise, my child. For the same reason he surrendered himself completely to death, so
that in him that gluttonous beast with his insatiable appetite would die completely. Since deaths
power comes from sin, it searched everywhere in his sinless body for its accustomed food, for
sensuality, pride, disobedience or, in a word, for that ancient sin which was its original
sustenance. In him, however, it found nothing to feed on and so, being entirely closed in upon
itself and destroyed for lack of nourishment, death became its own death.
Many of the just, proclaiming the Good News and prophesying, were awaiting him who
was to become by his Resurrection the firstborn from the dead. And so, to save all members of
the human race, whether they lived before the Law, under the Law, or after his own coming,
Christ dwelt three days beneath the earth. After his Resurrection it was the women who were the
first to see him, for as a woman brought the first sin into the world, so a woman first announced
the news of life to the world. Thus they heard the holy words, Women, rejoice; for sadness was to
be swallowed up by the joy of the Resurrection.
When Christ had clothed himself completely in the humanity created in Gods image and
transformed into the heavenly man the old man he had put on, the image united to himself
ascended with him into heaven. At the sign of the great mystery of human nature now ascending
with God the angelic powers cried out with joy, commanding the hosts of heaven: Lift up your
gates, you princes, be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall enter.
They, seeing the unheard of wonder of human nature united to God, exclaimed in their turn: Who
is this King of glory? and received the reply: The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory, the
strong, the mighty, the powerful in battle.
O God, spiritual and eternal Lord, and Christ, Lord and King, we entreat you to extend
your strong protecting hands over your holy Church and over your holy people, for ever devoted
to you. Raise high in our defence the trophies of your triumph and grant that we like Moses may
sing a hymn of victory, for yours is the glory and the power throughout all ages. Amen.

St Hippolytus (attr.), Paschal Homily (SC 27:116-118, 184-190); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Easter Tuesday Year II

A READING FROM ON THE PASCHAL SOLEMNITY BY EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA

Each year we mark the beginning of the paschal season by a feast for which we prepare by
a period of fasting. Our fast, like that of Moses and Elijah, lasts for forty days, but the feast itself
we shall celebrate repeatedly until the end of time.
When we set out on our journey to God we gird our loins with chastity and, safeguarding
the steps of our soul as though with sandals, we prepare to run the race of our heavenly vocation.
Repelling our enemies with the staff of the word of God and with the power of prayer, we hasten
eagerly toward our Passover into heaven, away from things below toward those above, away
from this mortal life toward life everlasting.
For when we have successfully accomplished our Passover an even greater feast awaits us.
The Jews call this feast Pentecost and it is a foreshadowing of the kingdom of heaven. Moses
said: You are to count seven weeks from the time when you begin to harvest the grain, and then
you shall offer the new loaves of this new harvest to God. In the symbol of the harvest he was
clearly referring prophetically to the vocation of the Gentiles. The new loaves are the souls
offered to God through Christ; they are the Churches made up of all nations, for whom God in his
love for us gives the greatest feast of all. Reaped by the sickles of the Apostles teaching, we are
gathered into the Churches all over the world, as though onto threshing-floors. We are made into
one body by our common faith, salted by the word of God in which we are instructed, reborn
through water and the fire of the Holy Spirit, and offered to God through Christ like loaves full of
goodness, a pleasing and acceptable sacrifice.
So now that the Mosaic types have given place to the sacred reality they foreshadowed, we
have learned to celebrate this more joyful festival as though already united to our Saviour in the
blessedness of his kingdom. During this feast we are allowed to rest from our labours, for we are
taught to imitate the rest that we hope to enjoy in heaven. We neither kneel for prayer nor exhaust
ourselves with fasting: it is not fitting for those who have been granted the grace of Resurrection
to cast themselves onto the ground again, nor for those who have been freed from their passions
to endure the same hardships as those still enslaved.
Accordingly, we celebrate the feast of Pentecost for seven full weeks after Easter, just as in
the six weeks before Easter we spent forty days in courageous self-denial. Six is a number
associated with activity, since we are told that God created the world in six days: but as the
number seven symbolizes rest, it is appropriate for our labours to be followed by a period of rest
lasting seven weeks, during which we celebrate a second great feast. Because we see in these
holy days of Pentecost an image of the rest to come, it is right for our souls to rejoice and for our
bodies to find repose and cease fasting as though already united to the bridegroom
.
Eusebius of Caesarea, On the Paschal Solemnity 4-5 (PG 24:698-699); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Easter Wednesday Year II

A READING FROM THE MYSTAGOGICAL CATECHESES OF ST CYRIL OF

JERUSALEM

When you were baptized into Christ and clothed yourselves in him, you were transformed
into the likeness of the Son of God. Having destined us to be his children by adoption, God gave
us a likeness to Christ in his glory, and, living as you do in communion with Christ, you
yourselves are rightly called christs or anointed ones. When he said: Do not touch my anointed
ones, God was speaking of you.
You became christs when you received the sign of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, everything
took place in you by means of images, because you yourselves are images of Christ. Christ
bathed in the river Jordan, imparting to its waters the fragrance of his divinity, and when he came
up from them the Holy Spirit descended upon him; like resting upon like. So you also, after
coming up from the sacred waters of Baptism, were anointed with chrism, which signifies the
Holy Spirit, by whom Christ was anointed and of whom blessed Isaiah prophesied in the name of
the Lord: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to
preach good news to the poor.
Christs anointing was not by human hands, nor was it with ordinary oil. On the contrary,
having destined him to be the Saviour of the whole world, the Father himself anointed him with
the Holy Spirit. The words of Peter bear witness to this: Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed
with the Holy Spirit. And David the prophet proclaimed: Your throne, O God, shall endure
forever, your royal sceptre is a sceptre of justice. You have loved righteousness and hated
iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above all your
fellows.
The oil of gladness with which Christ was anointed was a spiritual oil; it was in fact the
Holy Spirit himself who is called the oil of gladness because he is the source of spiritual joy. But
you also have been anointed with oil, and by this anointing you have entered into fellowship with
Christ and have received a share in his life. Beware of thinking of this chrism as merely ordinary
oil. As the eucharistic bread after the invocation of the Holy Spirit is no longer ordinary bread but
the body of Christ, so also the oil after the invocation is no longer plain ordinary oil but Christs
gift which by the presence of his divinity becomes the instrument through which you receive the
Holy Spirit. While symbolically, on your foreheads and organs of sense, your bodies are anointed
with this oil that we see; your souls are sanctified by the holy and life-giving Spirit.

St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 21.1-3 (PG 33:1087-1091); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Easter Thursday Year II

A READING FROM THE CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY OF THE

SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

In ancient times God, who wishes everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the
truth, spoke to our fathers through the prophets in many different ways. Then in the fullness of
time he sent his Son, the word made flesh and anointed by the Holy Spirit, to preach the Good
News to the poor, to heal the contrite of heart, to be a physician for both body and soul and
the mediator between God and the human race. Through his human nature united with the
person of the Word, we have been saved. Christ made the perfect satisfaction needed to
reconcile us with God and he gave us the means of worshiping God worthily.
The work of redeeming our race and giving full glory to God, foreshadowed by the divine
wonders performed among the people of the old covenant, was accomplished by Christ the Lord
principally by the paschal mystery of his blessed Passion, Resurrection from the dead, and
Ascension in glory. By dying he destroyed our death and by rising he restored our life. From his
side as he slept the sleep of death on the Cross came forth the wonderful Sacrament which is the
whole Church.
As Christ was sent by the Father, so he in his turn sent the Apostles, men filled with the
Holy Spirit, to preach the Good News to all creation. They were to proclaim that by his death and
Resurrection the Son of God has freed us from the power of Satan and from death and introduced
us into the kingdom of the Father. Moreover, they were to give effect to the saving work they
proclaimed by means of the sacrifice around which all our liturgical life revolves.
So it is that by Baptism men, women, and children are plunged into the paschal mystery,
dying, being buried, and rising again with Christ. They receive the Spirit who makes them
children of God so that they cry out, Abba, Father, and become the true worshipers the Father
seeks. So likewise they proclaim the Lords death until he comes every time they eat the Lords
Supper. On the very day of Pentecost, when the Church appeared before the world, those who
believed the word of Peter were baptized. They then devoted themselves to listening to the
Apostles teaching, sharing the common life, breaking bread, and praying. They gave praise to
God and won the good will of all the people.
From that time onward the Church has never failed to gather together to celebrate the
paschal mystery. It reads what is written about Christ in every part of Scripture, it celebrates the
Eucharist, in which the triumphant victory of his death is once again made present, and at the
same time it praises Gods glory by thanking him for the priceless gift he has given us in Christ
Jesus.

Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium 5-6; Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Easter Friday Year II

A READING FROM THE MYSTAGOGICAL CATECHESES OF ST CYRIL OF

JERUSALEM

On the night he was betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ took bread and when he had given
thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: Take, eat: this is my body. He took the
cup, gave thanks and said: Take, drink: this is my blood. Since Christ himself has declared the
bread to be his body, who can have any further doubt? Since he himself has said quite
categorically, This is my blood, who would dare to question it and say that it is not his blood?
Therefore it is with complete assurance that we receive the bread and wine as the body
and blood of Christ. His body is given to us under the symbol of bread, and his blood is given to
us under the symbol of wine, in order to make us by receiving them one body and one blood with
him. Having his body and blood in our members, we become bearers of Christ and sharers, as
Saint Peter says, in the divine nature.
Once when speaking to the Jews Christ said: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood
you shall have no life in you. This so horrified them that they left him. Not understanding his
words in a spiritual way, they thought the Saviour wished them to practise cannibalism.
Under the old covenant there was showbread, but it came an end with the old dispensation
to which it belonged. Under the new covenant there is bread from heaven and the cup of
salvation. These sanctify both soul and body, the bread being adapted to the sanctification of the
body, the Word to the sanctification of the soul.
Do not, then, regard the Eucharistic elements as ordinary bread and wine: they are in fact
the body and blood of the Lord, as he himself has declared. Whatever your senses may tell you,
be strong in faith.
You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread
and wine is not bread and wine but the body and the blood of Christ. You know also how David
referred to this long ago when he sang: Bread strengthens the heart and makes the face glow with
the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spiritual bread, and
bring joy to the face of your soul.
May purity of conscience remove the veil from the face of your soul so that by
contemplating the glory of the Lord, as in a mirror, you may be transformed from glory to glory
in Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 22.1. 3-6 (PG 33:1098-1106); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Easter Saturday Year II

A READING FROM AN EASTER SERMON BY BLESSED GUERRIC OF IGNY

Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Christ is the firstfruits of
those who have fallen asleep and the firstborn from the dead. His Resurrection, which is the
prototype of all others, has guaranteed the rising of our souls in the first resurrection and of our
bodies in the second, for he offers his own risen body to our souls as Sacrament and to our bodies
as exemplar. Even for our souls Christs single Resurrection has prepared a twofold grace:
through the living out of the paschal mystery in our daily lives we rise from the death of sin, and
by our joyful celebration of the paschal feast today we rouse ourselves from the torpor of sleep.
Truly slothful and half-hearted must that person be who does not feel a thrill of joy, a sense
of new life and vigour, at the glad cry: The Lord is risen! For myself; when I looked upon the
dead Jesus I was overwhelmed by despairing grief, but in the living God, as Scripture says, my
heart and my flesh rejoice. It is with no mean profit to faith, no slight dividend of joy, that Jesus
returns to me from the tomb, for I recognize the living God where only a little while ago I
mourned a dead man. My heart was sorrowing for him as slain; but now that he is risen, not only
my heart but my flesh also rejoices in the confident hope of my own resurrection and immortality.
I slept and I arose, Christ says. Awake, then, my sleeping soul, and rise from the dead,
and Christ will give you light! As the new sun rises from below, the grace of the Resurrection
already casts its radiance over the whole world, a radiance reflected in the eyes of those who have
watched for him since daybreak, a dawn that ushers in the day of eternity. This is the day that
knows no evening, the day whose sun will never set again. Only once has that sun gone down,
and now once and for all it has ascended above the heavens, leading death captive in its train.
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. And you also, if you
watch daily at the threshold of wisdom, fixing your eyes on the doorway and, like the Magdalen,
keeping vigil at the entrance to his tomb, you also will find what she found. You will know that
what was written of Wisdom was written of Christ: She hastens to make herself known to those
who desire her. Anyone who rises early to seek her will have no trouble; he will find her sitting at
his gates. While it was still dark Mary had come to watch at the tomb, and she found Jesus whom
she sought standing there in the flesh. But you must know him now according to the spirit, not
according to the flesh, and you can be sure of finding his spiritual presence if you seek him with a
desire like hers, and if he observes your persevering prayer. Say then to the Lord Jesus, with
Marys love and longing: My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks
for you. Make the Psalmists prayer your own as you say: O God, my God, I watch for you at
morning light; my soul thirsts for you. Then see if you do not also find yourselves singing with
them both: In the morning fill us with your love; we shall exult and rejoice all our days.

Bd. Guerric of Igny, Sermon 3 On the resurrection 1-2 (PL 185:148-149); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Low Sunday Year II

A READING FROM A PASCHAL HOMILY BY BISHOP BASIL OF SELEUCIA

Christ descended into hell to liberate its captives. In one instant he destroyed all record of
our ancient debt incurred under the Law, in order to lead us to heaven where there is no death but
only eternal life and righteousness.
By the Baptism which you, the newly-enlightened, have just received, you now share in
these blessings. Your initiation into the life of grace is the pledge of your resurrection. Your
Baptism is the promise of the life of heaven. By your immersion you imitated the burial of the
Lord, but when you came out of the water you were conscious only of the reality of the
Resurrection.
Believe in this reality, of which previously you saw only the outward signs. Accept the
assurance of Paul when he says: If we have been united to Christ in a death like his, we shall be
united to him also in a resurrection like his. Baptism is the planting of the seed of immortality, a
planting which takes place in the font and bears fruit in heaven. The grace of the Spirit works in a
mysterious way in the font, and the outward appearance must not obscure the wonder of it.
Although water serves as the instrument, it is grace which gives rebirth. Grace transforms all who
are placed in the font just as the seed is transformed in the womb. It refashions all who go down
into the water as metal is recast in a furnace. It reveals to them the mysteries of immortality; it
seals them with the pledge of resurrection
These wonderful mysteries are symbolized for you, the newly-enlightened, even in the
garments you wear. See how you are clothed in the outward signs of these blessings. The radiant
brightness of your robe stands for incorruptibility. The white band encircling your head like a
diadem proclaims your liberty. In your hand you hold the sign of your victory over the devil.
Christ is showing you that you have risen from the dead. He does this now in a symbolic way, but
soon he will reveal the full reality if we keep the garment of faith undefiled and do not let sin
extinguish the lamp of grace. If we preserve the crown of the Spirit, the Lord will call from
heaven in a voice of tremendous majesty, yet full of tenderness: Come, blessed of my Father, take
possession of the kingdom prepared for you since the beginning of the world. To him be glory and
power forever, through endless ages. Amen.

Bishop Basil of Seleucia, Paschal Homily (PG 28:1079-1082); World in Season III, 1st ed.
 Monday of the Second Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE CONFERENCES OF ST JOHN CASSIAN

There are in Egypt three kinds of monks. Two of them are very good, whilst the third is
lukewarm and utterly to be avoided. The first is that of the cenobites, who live together in a
community and are governed by the judgement of one elder. The greatest number of monks
dwelling in Egypt are of this kind. The second is that of the anchorites. These are first instructed
in the cenobia and then, perfected in their practical way of life, choose the recesses of the desert.
We too have chosen to be part of this profession. The third and blameworthy type is that of the
sarabaites.
The discipline of the cenobites took its rise at the time of the apostolic preaching. For such
was the whole multitude of believers in Jerusalem described in the Acts of the Apostles: The
multitude of believers had one heart and one soul, and none of them said that what he possessed
was his own, but all things were common to them. They sold their possessions and their
belongings and distributed them to all as each had need.
Such, I say, was the whole Church then, whereas now it is difficult to find even a few like
that in the cenobia. But, at the death of the Apostles, the multitude of believers began to grow
lukewarm, especially those who came over to the faith of Christ from different foreign nations.
Because of their rudimentary faith and inveterate paganism, the Apostles asked nothing more of
them than that they abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from fornication, from things
strangled, and from blood. But this liberty, which was conceded to the pagans because of the
weakness of their new faith, gradually began to spoil the perfection of the Church in Jerusalem,
and, as its number daily increased, the warmth of that new faith grew cold, and not only
newcomers to the faith of Christ but even the leaders of the Church relaxed their strictness. For
some people, thinking that what they saw conceded to the pagans because of their weakness was
lawful for them as well, thought that it would be no loss to themselves if they believed in and
confessed Christ whilst keeping their belongings and property.
Those in whom the apostolic fervour still existed, however, where mindful of that earlier
perfection. Abandoning their towns and the company of the negligent, they began to live in rural
and more secluded places and to practise privately and individually what they remembered had
been taught by the Apostles throughout the body of the Church. As time went on they gradually
separated themselves from the crowds of believers because they abstained from marriage, cut
themselves off from the company of their parents and from the life of this world. They were
called monks or monazontes because of the strictness of their solitary lives. They are also called
cenobites from their common fellowship, and their cells and dwelling places are called cenobia.
This alone, then, was the most ancient kind of monks, which is first not only in time but also in
grace, and which remained inviolable throughout the years, up until the era of Abba Paul and
Abba Antony. We see that remnants of it endure even now in strict cenobia.

St John Cassian, The Conferences 18.4.2-5.4; ACW 57 (1997) tr Ramsey.

 Tuesday of the Second Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE ASCETICON OF ST BASIL THE GREAT

Is it necessary first to renounce everything and then come to the way of life according to
God?
Since our Lord Jesus Christ says to all, If anyone comes to me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me; and again, whoever does not renounce all he has cannot be my
disciple, we think that this commandment extends to a necessary estrangement from many things.
For first of all, we who have given up the hidden things of shame renounce the devil and the
passions of the flesh, family ties and human friendships and any manner of life that conflicts with
the strictness of the Gospel of salvation. And, what is still more necessary, he who has put off the
old nature with its practices which is corrupt through deceitful desires renounces even himself.
He also renounces all affections of this world which can hinder the aim of godliness.
Such a man regards as his true parents those who have given birth to him by the Gospel, he
regards as his brothers those who received the same spirit of adoption, and he will consider all
possessions as foreign to him, as indeed they are. In a word, how can he to whom the whole
world has been crucified on account of Christ, and he to the world, be a sharer any longer in the
cares of the world? For our Lord Jesus Christ goes to extremes in hatred of the soul and denial of
self, when he says, If anyone comes to me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow
me. Again, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and
children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Perfect renunciation, therefore, consists in ones attaining freedom from desire concerning
this life and having the sentence of death so as not to rely on oneself. Its beginnings, however, are
alienation from external things such as possessions, vainglory, the common customs of life, or
attachment to useless things. Examples are given us by the holy disciples of the Lord: John and
James, who left their father Zebedee and even their boat, their only source of livelihood;
Matthew, who rose up from the tax-office and followed the Lord, not only leaving the profits in
the tax-office, but also despising the dangers likely to come upon himself and his family at the
hands of the authorities for leaving the accounts of the tax-office in disorder. To Paul the whole
world was crucified, and he to the world.
In the same way one who is violently seized by the desire to follow Christ can no longer
care for anything to do with this life: not for the love of parents or relations, if this is in
opposition to the commandments of the Lord; not for the fear of men according to the example of
the saints who said, we must obey God rather than men; and not because of derision from
outsiders on account of their good works.

St Basil the Great, The Asketikon, Longer Response 8; tr. Pluscarden

 Wednesday in the Second Week of Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

You have all heard in the reading how the blessed Stephen was ordained Deacon with six
others, himself being the seventh, and how he won through to his heavenly crown. This is the first
special privilege of the first martyr: that whilst we can scarcely lay hands on the stories of other
martyrs to read them as we celebrate their feasts, the passion of this one is to be found in a book
from the canon of Scripture, The Acts of the Apostles. The reading of this book starts on Easter
Sunday, as is the custom of the Church. In this book you have heard how seven Deacons,
including St Stephen, were elected and then ordained by the Apostles. The Apostles first, the
Deacons second; and the Deacons produced a martyr before the Apostles, the lambs provided a
victim before the rams.
But what a very similar passion he underwent to that of his Lord and Saviour! False
witnesses against the one as against the other; and about the same matter. You know what the
false witnesses said against the Lord Christ: We heard him say ourselves, I will pull down this
temple, and after three days I will build another new one. The Lord, though, hadnt actually said
this; but falsehood wanted to stick close to the truth. Where he said Pull down, the false
witnesses said I will pull down. They changed a few syllables; but the false witnesses were all
the worse, for wishing to stick near the truth in their calumny.
And what was Stephen charged with? We heard him say that Jesus the Nazarene will
destroy this temple, and change the custom of the Law. They were giving false testimony, and
prophesying the truth. Just as Caiaphas, their master, chief of the priests, when advising the Jews
that Christ should be killed, said this: It is expedient that one should die, rather than that the
whole nation should perish; but the evangelist says, This he did not say of himself; but since he
was High Priest that year, he prophesied that it was necessary for Christ to die for the people.
Whats this, brothers? Great indeed is the force of truth. People hate the truth, and they prophecy
the truth without knowing it. Actually, they dont do it, but it is done through them.
They brought him before the Council, in order to obtain a more impressive judgement. But
the friend of Christ, when they had stated their case, proclaimed the truth about his Lord. He was
going to die; why should a God-fearing tongue keep quiet before the godless? Why not die for the
truth? In this one respect he was unlike his Lord when their trials are compared, because of a very
definite mystery. When the Lord was brought to his Passion, he preferred to keep quiet on being
interrogated; this man did not keep quiet. Why did Christ prefer to keep quiet? Because it had
been foretold about him: Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb without a voice
before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth. Why, though, did St Stephen refuse to keep
quiet? Because the Lord himself had said, What I tell you in the dark, tell in the light; and what
you hear in the ear, proclaim on the rooftops.
St Augustine, Sermon 315, 1-3; WSA (1994), tr. Hill
 Thursday in the Second Week of Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM BY ORIGEN

If passing from unbelief to faith means that we have passed from death to life, we should
not be surprised to find that the world hates us. Anyone who has not passed from death to life is
incapable of loving those who have departed from deaths dark dwelling place to enter a dwelling
made of living stones and filled with the light of life. Jesus laid down his life for us; so we too
should lay down our lives, I will not say for him, but for ourselves and also, surely, for those who
will be helped by the example of our martyrdom.
Now is the time for Christians to rejoice. Scripture says: We should rejoice in our
sufferings, because we know that suffering trains us to endure with patience, patient endurance
makes us pleasing to God, and being pleasing to God gives us ground for a hope that will not be
disappointed. Only let the love of God be poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
The more we share in the sufferings of Christ, the more we share, through him, in his
consolation. We should be extremely eager to share in Christs sufferings and to let them be
multiplied in us if we desire the superabundant consolation that will be given to those who mourn.
This consolation will not perhaps be the same for all, for if it were, Scripture would not say: The
more we share in the sufferings of Christ, the more we share in his consolation. Sharing in his
consolation will be proportionate to our sharing in his suffering.
God says through the prophet: At an acceptable time I heard you, on the day of salvation
I helped you. What time could be more acceptable than when, for our fidelity to God in Christ,
we are made a public spectacle and led away under guard, not defeated but triumphant?
In Christ and with Christ the martyrs disarm the principalities and powers and share in his
triumph over them, for their share in Christs sufferings makes them sharers also in the mighty
deeds those sufferings accomplished. What could more appropriately be called the day of
salvation than the day of such a glorious departure from this world?

Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom, 41-42 (PG 11:618-619); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Friday in the Second Week of Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

In the liturgy the Holy Spirit is the teacher of the faith of the People of God and the artisan
of Gods masterpieces, the Sacraments of the New Covenant. The desire and work of the Spirit
in the heart of the Church is that we may live from the life of the risen Christ. When the Spirit
encounters in us the response of faith which he has aroused in us, he brings about genuine
cooperation. Through it, the liturgy becomes the common work of the Holy Spirit and the Church.
In this sacramental dispensation of Christs mystery the Holy Spirit acts in the same way
as at other times in the economy of salvation: he prepares the Church to encounter her Lord; he
recalls and makes Christ manifest to the faith of the assembly. By his transforming power, he
makes the mystery of Christ present here and now. Finally the Spirit of communion unites the
Church to the life and mission of Christ.
In the sacramental economy the Holy Spirit fulfils what was prefigured in the Old
Covenant. Since Christ's Church was prepared in marvellous fashion in the history of the people
of Israel and in the Old Covenant, the Churchs liturgy has retained certain elements of the
worship of the Old Covenant as integral and irreplaceable, adopting them as her own: notably,
reading the Old Testament; praying the Psalms; above all, recalling the saving events and
significant realities which have found their fulfilment in the mystery of Christ: promise and
covenant, Exodus and Passover, kingdom and temple, exile and return.
It is on this harmony of the two Testaments that the Paschal catechesis of the Lord is built,
and then, that of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church. This catechesis unveils what lay
hidden under the letter of the Old Testament: the mystery of Christ. It is called typological
because it reveals the newness of Christ on the basis of the figures or types which announce
him in the deeds, words, and symbols of the first covenant. By this re-reading in the Spirit of
Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled. Thus the flood and Noahs ark prefigured
salvation by Baptism, as did the cloud and the crossing of the Red Sea. Water from the rock was
the figure of the spiritual gifts of Christ, and manna in the desert prefigured the Eucharist, the
true bread from heaven.
For this reason the Church, especially during Advent and Lent and above all at the Easter
Vigil, re-reads and re-lives the great events of salvation history in the today of her liturgy. But
this also demands that catechesis help the faithful to open themselves to this spiritual
understanding of the economy of salvation as the Churchs liturgy reveals it and enables us to live
it.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1091-1095

 Saturday in the Second Week of Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

What did Stephen do? First take a look at the one whom this good friend was imitating.
While the Lord Jesus Christ was hanging on the Cross, he said, Father, into your hands I
commend my spirit. He, though, said, Father; Stephen said, Lord Jesus. What else did he also
say? Receive my spirit. You spoke to the Father, I to you. I recognize the Mediator; you came to
lift up the fallen; you hadnt fallen with me. Receive, he said, my spirit.
That was his prayer for himself; something else came into his mind, in which he might
imitate his Lord. Recall the words of the one hanging on the Cross, and mark the words of the one
who was being stoned for confessing him. What did the former say? Father, forgive them,
because they know not what they do. Possibly, Stephen was at that time among those who did not
know what they were doing. Many of them, you see, afterward came to believe. And we are not
certain which group the blessed Stephen came from, whether he was one of those who had
previously believed in Christ. If not, then that prayer also availed for him: Father, forgive them,
because they know not what they do.
And yet Saul too was one of those. When Stephen the lamb was being stoned, he was still
a wolf, still thirsting for blood, still thinking his own hands were not enough to stone him with,
and therefore keeping the coats of those who were doing the stoning. So Stephen recalled what
had been said for him, Father, forgive them, because they know not what they do; and to imitate
his Lord even in this respect, in order to be his friend, he too said, Lord, do not hold this sin
against them. Do you suppose Saul heard these words? He certainly heard, but he jeered; and yet
he was included in Stephens prayer. He was still rampaging around, and already Stephen was
being heard on his behalf.
Such a lovely picture this is: where you see holy Stephen being stoned, you can see Saul
keeping the coats of those doing the stoning. This man is Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus, this
man is Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus. Yes, you listened very well to the voice saying Why are
you persecuting me? You were laid low, you were raised up; laid low as a persecutor, raised up
as a preacher. Tell us, let us hear it: Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Certainly
not by your will, was it, dear Saul? We have seen the fruit of your will: Stephen was slain by your
will. We can see your fruits that came by the will of God: you are read everywhere, chanted
everywhere, everywhere you are converting to Christ the hearts that oppose him, everywhere as a
good shepherd you are gathering huge flocks.
You are reigning with the one you stoned, reigning with Christ. There you can both see
each other, can both now hear my sermon; both of you please pray for us. He will listen to you
both, the one who crowned you; first one, and then the other; one who suffered persecution, the
other who did the persecuting. Then the first was a lamb, the other a wolf; now, though, both are
lambs. May the lambs acknowledge us, and see us in the flock of Christ. May they commend us
to him in their prayers, so as to obtain a quiet and tranquil life for the Church of their Lord.

St Augustine, Sermon 316, 3-5; WSA (1994) tr. Hill

 Sunday in the Third Week of Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

Sing to the Lord a new song; his praise is in the assembly of the saints. We are urged to
sing a new song to the Lord. This new song is the song that has been learned by the new man.
Now a song it is a thing of joy; more profoundly, it is a thing of love. It is the person who has
learned to love the new life who has learned to sing the new song. In order to be able to sing the
new song, therefore, we need to be reminded of the nature of the new life, for the new man, the
new song, the new covenant, all belong to the same kingdom. Not only, then, will the new man
sing the new song, he will also belong to the new covenant.
There is no one who does not love something, but the question is, what to love. The psalms
do not tell us not to love, but to choose the object of our love. But how can we choose unless we
are first chosen? We cannot love unless someone has loved us first Listen to the Apostle John: We
love him, because he first loved us. The source of our love for God can only be found in the fact
that God loved us first. He has given us himself as the object of our love, and he has also given us
its source. What this source is you may learn more clearly from the Apostle Paul who tells us:
The love of God has been poured into our hearts. This love is not something we generate
ourselves; it comes to us through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Since we have such an assurance, then, let us love God with the love he has given us. As
John tells us more fully: God is love, and whoever dwells in love dwells in God, and God in
him. It is not enough to say: Love is from God. Which of us would dare to pronounce the words
of Scripture: God is love? He alone could say it who knew what it was to have God dwelling
within him. God offers us a short route to the possession of himself. He cries out: Love me and
you will have me, for you would be unable to love me if you did not possess me already.
My dear brethren and children, fruit of the true faith and holy seed of heaven, all you who
have been born again in Christ and whose life is from above, listen to me; or rather, listen to the
Holy Spirit saying through me: Sing to the Lord a new song. Look you tell me, I am singing. Yes
indeed, you are singing; you are singing clearly, I can hear you. But make sure that your life does
not contradict your words. Sing with your voices, your hearts, your lips, and your lives: Sing to
the Lord a new song.
Now it is your unquestioned desire to sing of him whom you love, but you ask me how
to sing his praises. You have heard the words: Sing to the Lord a new song, and you wish to
know what praises to sing. The answer is: His praise is in the assembly of the saints; it is in
the singers themselves. If you desire to praise him, then live what you express. Live good
lives, and you yourselves will be his praise.

St Augustine, Sermon 34, 1-3.5-6 (CCL 41:424-426); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Monday in the Third Week of Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

The Lord said somewhere, after he had risen from the dead, Receive the Holy Spirit, and
after saying Receive the Holy Spirit, he immediately added, Whose sins you forgive, they are
forgiven them; that is, its the Spirit who forgives, not you. But the Spirit is God. So its God who
forgives, not you. What, though, are you in relation to the Spirit? Do you not know that you are
the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? So God dwells in his holy temple, that is
among his holy faithful, in his Church and it is through them he forgives sins.
But if he forgives through human agency, he can also forgive apart from human agency. To
some he gave forgiveness through John; through whom did he give grace to John himself?
Wishing to demonstrate this and to confirm this truth, God very suitably arranged that when some
people in Samaria had been evangelized and baptized, and baptized by Philip, one of the seven
Deacons originally chosen, they did not receive the Holy Spirit, and yet they had been baptized.
This was told to the disciples in Jerusalem, and they came to Samaria so that those who had been
baptized might receive the Holy Spirit by their laying on their hands.
When Simon saw this, he thought it was something possessed by men, and wanted to
possess it himself. Thinking it was possessed by men, he wanted to buy it from men. Then Peter
denounced him and said, You have neither part nor portion in this faith. For you thought the gift
of God is something to be bought with money. Now I would like you to take note of why I have
wanted to remind you of this story. It was proper for God to show first that he works through
men; but next that he works through himself, in case people should think what Simon thought,
that that sort of power belongs to men, not to God though the disciples themselves already
knew this. After all, one hundred and twenty people had been gathered together when the Holy
Spirit came upon them without the laying on of anyones hands. I mean, who had then imposed
hands on them? And yet he came, and they were the first ones he filled.
After that scandal of Simon, what did God do? Notice him teaching, not by words but by
events. Philip had baptized people and the Holy Spirit hadnt come upon them until the Apostles
had come along and laid their hands upon them. This same Philip later baptised the eunuch of
Queen Candace. He had been worshipping in Jerusalem, and on his way back from there was
reading the prophet Isaiah in his chariot and not understanding it. Philip was prompted to
approach the chariot, and he explained the reading, insinuated the faith, preached Christ. The
eunuch believed in Christ, and said when they came to some water, Look, here is water; who is to
prevent me being baptized? Philip said to him, Do you believe in Jesus Christ? He answered, I
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And immediately he went down with him into the
water. Once the mystery and Sacrament of Baptism had been carried out, since there was no
expectation of the Apostles coming as on the previous occasion, so that no one should think the
gift of the Holy Spirit was at the disposal of men, the Holy Spirit came immediately. That put an
end to Simons ideas, to make sure he didnt have imitators in that kind of thinking.

St Augustine, Sermon 99, 9-11; WSA (1992) tr. Hill

 Tuesday of the Third Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

We have heard the Apostles words, or rather through the Apostle the words of Christ
speaking in the one whom he made into a preacher out of a persecutor; the lamb slain by wolves
making lambs out of wolves. What happened in the case of Paul had been foretold in a notable
prophecy when the holy Patriarch Jacob was blessing his sons. This concerned them as present
then, but also looked forward to things to come. Paul, as he informs us himself, was of the tribe of
Benjamin. Now when Jacob, in blessing his sons, came to the blessing of Benjamin, he said about
him, Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. So what, then? If the wolf is ravenous, is it always ravenous?
Surely not! In the morning he will ravage, at evening he will divide the prey. This was fulfilled in
the Apostle Paul, because it had also been foretold about him.
Now, if you agree, let us take a look at him ravaging in the morning, and in the evening
dividing the prey. Morning and evening were said, as though to say, Before and after. So let us
take it like this: He will ravage before, he will divide the prey afterward. Observe him ravaging:
Saul, as the Acts of the Apostles tell us, on receiving letters from the chief priests, that wherever
he should find followers of the way of God, he should arrest and bring them, to be punished, of
course, went off breathing and panting slaughter.
We have heard how in the morning he will ravage; let us see how at evening he will
divide the prey. He was laid low by the voice of Christ from heaven, and as he received the
injunction forbidding him to rage, he fell on his face. First he must be laid low, then raised up;
first he must be struck, later on healed. Christ, after all, would not be able to live in him later on,
unless what had previously lived badly were slain in him. So what did he hear when he was laid
low? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad. And he
said: Who are you, Lord? And the voice from above: I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are
persecuting. The head in heaven was crying out for his members still located on earth, and he
didnt say, Why are you persecuting my servants? but Why are you persecuting me? And he
answered What do you wish me to do?
He is now preparing himself to obey, where previously he had worked himself up to
destroy. Already the preacher is being fashioned out of the persecutor, the sheep out of the wolf,
the loyal soldier out of the enemy. He heard what he must do. Yes, certainly he was struck blind.
For his heart to shine with an inner light, the outer light was for a time snatched away from him;
it was withdrawn from the persecutor, to be restored in due course to the preacher. And yet during
the period when he couldnt see anything else, he was seeing Jesus. Thus even in his very
blindness the mystery of what it is to be a believer was taking shape; since those who believe in
Christ ought to fix their gaze on him, ought to reckon everything else as scarcely even real; so
that the creature becomes cheap in their eyes, while the creator grows all the dearer in their
hearts.

St Augustine, Sermon 279,1-2; WSA (1994) tr. Hill

 Wednesday of the Third Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE WRITINGS OF ST ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA

If it is by the sign of the Cross and by faith in Christ that death is trampled underfoot, it is
clear that it is Christ himself and none other who is the Archvictor over death and has robbed it of
its power. Death used to be strong and terrible, but now, since the advent of the Saviour and the
death and Resurrection of his body, it is despised. When the sun rises after the night and the
whole world is lit up by it, nobody doubts that it is the sun which has thus shed its light
everywhere and driven away the dark. Equally clear is it, since this utter scorning and trampling
down of death has ensued upon the Saviours manifestation in the body and his death on the
Cross, that it is he himself who brought death to nought and daily raises monuments to his victory
in his own disciples. How can you think otherwise, when you see people naturally weak
hastening to death, unafraid at the prospect of corruption, fearless of the descent into Hades, even
indeed with eager soul provoking it, not shrinking from tortures, but preferring thus to rush on
death for Christs sake, rather than to remain in this present life?
If, as we have shown, death was destroyed and everybody tramples on it because of Christ,
how much more did he himself first trample and destroy it in his own body! How could the
destruction of death have been manifested at all, had not the Lords body been raised?
People who are dead cannot take effective action; their power of influence on others lasts
only till the grave. Deeds and actions that energise others belong only to the living. Well, then,
look at the facts in this case. The Saviour is working mightily among us every day. He is invisibly
persuading numbers of people all over the world to accept his faith and be obedient to his
teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt that he has risen and lives, or rather that he is
himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men, so that they throw all the
traditions of their fathers to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? If he is no
longer active in the world, as would be the case if he were dead, how is it that he makes the living
to cease from their activities, the adulterer from his adultery, the murderer from murdering, the
unjust man from avarice, while the profane and godless become religious? This is the work of
One who lives, not of one dead; and, more than that, it is the work of God.

St Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 29-30; Word in Season III, 2nd ed.

 Thursday of the Third Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

All the commandments given to the Jews are shadowy signs of things to come. After the
light of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, has come, they are read only in order to be understood,
not also in order to be observed. So Christians have been given the freedom to eat what they like,
in moderation, with a blessing, with thanksgiving. So perhaps Peter too was told Kill and eat in
this sense, that he need no longer be bound to Jewish observances.
But all the same, to prove to you that all this was a symbolic showing, that vessel
contained creeping things; could he possibly eat creeping things? So what does all this symbolism
mean? That receptacle signifies the Church; the four lines it was hanging from are the four
quarters of the earth, through which the Catholic Church stretches. So all those who wish to go
apart into a sect and to cut themselves off from the whole, do not belong to the sacred reality
signified by the four lines. God says his holy ones are to be gathered together at the end from the
four winds, because now the Gospel faith is being spread abroad through all those four cardinal
points of the compass. So those animals are the nations which were unclean in their superstitions
and lusts before Christ came.
Its clear, you see, from many places in Scripture that Peter can stand for, or represent, the
Church; the Church is the body of Christ. Let him then receive the Gentiles now made clean, their
sins having been forgiven; thats why the gentile Cornelius had sent for him. This mans charities
had been accepted and had cleansed him after a fashion; it only remained for him, like clean food,
to be incorporated into the Church, that is, into the Lords body. Peter, though, was worried about
handing the Gospel over to the Gentiles, because those of the circumcision who believed were not
allowing the Apostles to hand on the Christian faith to the uncircumcised unless they accepted
circumcision, which had been the tradition of their ancestors.
So that receptacle removed this hesitation of his; and thats why after that vision he was
allowed by the Holy Spirit to go with the men who had come from Cornelius; and off he went.
Cornelius, you see, and the people with him were to be regarded as being among those animals
which had been shown him in that receptacle; God, however, had already made them clean,
because he had accepted the charitable acts they had performed from there. So now they had to be
killed and eaten; that is, the old life in which they had not known Christ was to be slain in them,
and they were to pass over into his body, as into the new life of the fellowship of the Church.
Why was it let down three times from heaven? Because all these nations, who belong to
the four quarters of the globe, where the Church signified by the four lines to which that
receptacle was connected is being sown like seed, are baptized in the name of the Trinity. They
are being renewed by believing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in
order to belong to the communion of the saints. So the four lines and the triple letting down also
yields the number twelve of the Apostles; as though three each were allotted to the four quarters.
Four threes, you see, make twelve. I think thats enough, dont you, about this vision.

St Augustine, Sermon 149, 5-10; WSA (1992), tr. Hill

 Friday of the Third Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A COMMENTARY ON PSALM 96 BY ST AUGUSTINE

Sion heard and was glad. What did Sion hear? That all Gods angels worship him? Yes, to
be sure; but what else did Sion hear? This is what it heard: the heavens have proclaimed his
justice, and the nations have seen his glory. Let all who worship graven images be put to shame,
those who boast of their idols. The Church had not yet extended to the Gentiles, you see. Some of
the Jews in Judea had come to believe, but these Jews imagined that they alone belonged to
Christ. Then the Apostles were sent to the Gentiles, and the word was preached to Cornelius.
He believed and was baptised, and his companions were baptised with him. You know
what had happened to lead them to Baptism: Peter came to Cornelius house; but Cornelius was
from the Gentiles, so he and his friends were uncircumcised. In order, therefore that Peter and his
companions might have no hesitation about delivering the Gospel to uncircumcised persons, the
Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius and the others even before they were baptised; the Spirit filled
them and they began to speak in tongues. Until this time the Holy Spirit had never fallen upon
any unbaptised person; but he fell on these before their Baptism. Peter might well have hesitated
over whether to baptise the uncircumcised, but the Holy Spirit came and they began to speak in
tongues. The invisible gift was conferred and removed any doubt about the visible Sacrament; so
they were all baptised.
Now you find it recorded in Scripture that the Apostles and the brethren in Judea heard
that the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God, and they glorified God. It is this thanksgiving
on their part which is mentioned in our psalm: Sion heard and was glad, and the daughters of
Judea leapt for joy. What did Sion hear, to inspire such gladness? That the Gentiles too had
accepted the word of God. One wall had already been set in place, but as yet there was no corner.
The Church in Judea is rightly called Sion here. Scripture records that the Apostles and the
brethren in Judea heard does that not mean that the daughters of Judea leapt for joy. What did
they hear? That the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God. And where does the psalm testify
to the same event? The heavens have proclaimed his justice and all nations have seen his glory.
And since they were Gentiles who had come to believe, former idol-worshippers, the psalm
continued, Let all who worship graven images be put to shame, those who boast of their idols.
Rightly, then, is it said, Sion heard and was glad, and the daughter of Judea leapt for joy.

St Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 96, 13; WSA (2002) tr. Maria Boulding
 Saturday of the Third Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM ON CHRISTIAN PERFECTION BY ST GREGORY OF NYSSA

No one has known Christ better than Paul, nor has anyone surpassed him in the example
he gave of what anyone should be who bears Christs name. So perfectly did he mirror his Master
that he became his very image. He was transformed into his model and it seemed to be no longer
Paul who lived and spoke, but Christ himself living in Paul. His words Since you seek a proof
that it is Christ who speaks in me, and, It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, show
his keen awareness of this grace.
Paul teaches us the meaning of Christs name when he calls him the power and wisdom of
God, our peace, the unapproachable light in which God dwells, our sanctification and redemption,
our great High Priest, our paschal sacrifice, our expiation; when he declares him to be the
reflection of Gods glory, the perfect likeness of his nature, the Creator of all ages, our spiritual
food and drink, the rock and the water, the foundation of our faith, the cornerstone, the image of
the invisible God. He shows what Christs name means when he says that he is the mighty God,
the Head of his Body the Church, the firstborn of the new creation, the firstfruits of those who
have fallen asleep, the firstborn from the dead, the eldest of many brethren, and when he tells us
that Christ is the mediator between God and man, the only-begotten Son crowned with glory and
honour, the Lord of glory, the beginning of all things, the King of justice and of peace, the King
of the whole universe, the ruler of a realm that has no boundaries.
Paul calls Christ by many other titles too numerous to mention. Their cumulative force
when taken together gives some conception of what the name Christ really means, and shows us
his inexpressible majesty in so far as our minds can comprehend it. Since by the goodness of God
we who are called Christians have been granted the honour of sharing this name, the greatest, the
highest, the most sublime of all names, each of the titles that explains its meaning should have its
reflection in us: if we are not to be false to this name we must bear witness to it by our lives.

St Gregory of Nyssa, On Christian Perfection (Jaeger 8:174-177); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Sunday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST MAXIMUS OF TURIN

Christ is risen! He has burst open the gates of hell and let the dead go free; he has renewed
the earth through the members of his Church now born again in Baptism, and has made it
blossom afresh with men brought back to life. His Holy Spirit has unlocked the doors of heaven,
which stand wide open to receive those who rise up from the earth. Because of Christs
Resurrection the thief ascends to Paradise, the bodies of the blessed enter the holy city, and the
dead are restored to the company of the living; there is an upward movement in the whole of
creation, each element raising itself to something higher. We see the underworld restoring its
victims to the upper regions, earth sending its buried dead to heaven, and heaven presenting the
new arrivals to the Lord. In one and the same movement our Saviours Passion raises men from
the depths, lifts them up from the earth, and sets them in the heights.
Christ is risen! His rising brings life to the dead, forgiveness to sinners, and glory to the
saints. And so David the prophet summons all creation to join in celebrating the Easter festival:
Rejoice and be glad, he cries, on this day which the Lord has made.
The light of Christ is an endless day that knows no night. Christ is this day, says the
Apostle; such is the meaning of his words: Night is almost over; day is at hand. He tells us that
night is almost over, not that it is about to fall. By this we are meant to understand that the
coming of Christs light puts Satans darkness to flight, leaving no place for any shadow of sin.
His everlasting radiance dispels the dark clouds of the past and checks the hidden growth of vice.
The Son himself is the day to whom The Day, his Father, communicates the mystery of his
Divinity. He it is who says through the mouth of Solomon, I have caused an unfailing light to
rise in heaven. And as in heaven no night can follow day, so no sin can overshadow the justice of
Christ. The celestial day is perpetually bright and shining with brilliant light; clouds can never
darken its skies. In the same way, the light of Christ is eternally glowing with luminous radiance,
and can never be extinguished by the darkness of sin. This is why John the Evangelist says: The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never been able to overpower it.
And so, my friends, each of us ought surely to rejoice on this holy day. Let no one,
conscious of his sinfulness, withdraw from our common celebration, nor let anyone be kept away
from our public prayer by the burden of guilt. Sinner one may indeed be, but no one must despair
of pardon on this day which is so highly privileged; for if a thief could receive the grace of
Paradise, how could a Christian be refused forgiveness?

St Maximus of Turin, Sermon 53, 1-2 (CCL 23:214-216); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Monday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE WRITINGS OF BISHOP EUSEBIUS OF EMESA

Two men entered a city, carrying with them no food, no money, no extra garment. Who do
you think welcomed them? What lodging was prepared for them, and where? Do you not marvel
at the authority of the one who sent them and at the faith of those who were sent? Two strangers
entered a city. What did they possess? What did they preach? He was crucified, they said. They
were humble, untrained, unlettered, needy. Yet what they preached was the Cross, and it was from
this preaching that faith was to come!
But despite the obstacles virtue won out. The Cross was preached and temples were razed;
the Cross is preached and kings are won over. The Cross is preached and the wise are proved
wrong, pagan feasts are abolished, and their gods are melted down. Why do you marvel that the
Apostles were believed or that they were received? Let not these great wonders pass us by. Men
who were strangers, unknown and knowing no one, and bringing nothing to catch the eye,
traversed the world, preaching the crucified one, and commending fasting in place of
drunkenness, a troublesome chastity in place of lust: a serious burden to those who were
concerned to accept these exhortations to moral behaviour in place of abominable practices.
These men took possession of peoples and made cities their own. Yet what treasure did
they have? The power of the Cross. Consider the riches of kings and the riches of the Apostles.
See how different is their condition. A king is magnificent, the Apostles are humble; though
mortal, they effect by Gods power the deeds of God.
Before the crucifixion the disciples do nothing, but after it they act. If they accomplished
anything before the crucifixion, they did so in obscurity. But after the sacred blood erased the
decree written against us; after we who were unclean were sprinkled; after death was put to death
by death; after God, through a man, conquered him who was devouring men; after death
swallowed him up, only to cast him forth; after sin was put to death by obedience; after Adam had
been restored by another man; after error had been corrected by the Virgin; after the thief entered
Paradise on the very day on which Adam had departed from Paradise; after error that had entered
through a tree was corrected through a tree; after thorns on the forehead replaced the thorns
produced by the soil; after the Father showed mercy and the Son received this mercy in our place;
after sin was put to death and corruption was destroyed then the disciples, who before the
crucifixion had been fearful, after the crucifixion raised their voices.
The Apostles obey; they rouse up men laid low in darkness. For power was imparted to
those to whom the Apostles came. They were no longer what they had been, what we had been;
but they were clad with power. And just as iron is cold before the fire is kindled, but when it is
placed in the fire and grows white-hot, it casts off its coldness and enkindles other things with its
heat, so do mortal men who have put on Jesus.

Bishop Eusebius of Emesa, The Apostles and the Faith, 2:15-16; Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM ON THE SACRAMENTS BY ST AMBROSE

You were asked: Do you believe in God the Father almighty? You replied: I believe,
and you were immersed: that is, buried. You were asked for a second time: Do you believe in our
Lord Jesus Christ and in his Cross? You replied: I believe, and you were immersed: which
means that you were buried with Christ. For one who is buried with Christ rises again with Christ.
You were asked a third time: Do you believe also in the Holy Spirit? You replied: I believe,
and you were immersed a third time, so that the threefold confession might absolve the manifold
lapses of the past.
We can give you an illustration of this. The holy Apostle Peter appeared to lapse through
human weakness during the Lords Passion. To wipe out and absolve the fault of his denial, he
was asked by Christ three times if he loved him. Peter replied: Lord, you know that I love you. He
answered three times so as to be absolved three times.
Thus the Father forgives sin, so does the Son, and so does the Holy Spirit. Do not be
surprised that we are baptized in one name: in the name, that is, of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit; because Christ spoke of only one name where there is one substance, one
divinity, one majesty. This is the name of which it is written: In this must all find salvation. It is in
this name that you have all been saved, that you have been restored to the grace of life.
So the Apostle exclaims, as you have just heard in the reading, Whoever is baptized, is
baptized in the death of Jesus. What does in the death mean? It means that just as Christ died, so
you will taste death; that just as Christ died to sin and lives to God, so through the Sacrament of
Baptism you are dead to the old enticements of sin and have risen again through the grace of
Christ. This is a death, then, not in the reality of bodily death, but in likeness. When you are
immersed, you receive the likeness of death and burial, you receive the Sacrament of his Cross;
because Christ hung upon the Cross and his body was fastened to it by the nails. So you are
crucified with him.
The font has the shape and appearance of a sort of tomb. When we believe in the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are received and immersed in it; that is, we are restored to life.
You also receive the myrrh, that is, the chrism, over your heads. Why over your heads? Because
the faculties of the wise man are situated in his head, says Solomon. Wisdom without grace is
inert; but when wisdom receives grace, then its work begins to move toward fulfilment. This is
called regeneration.
What is regeneration? You can read in the Acts of the Apostles that a verse from the
second Psalm, You are my son, today I have begotten you, seems to refer to the Resurrection.
That is why he is also called The firstborn from the dead. For what is resurrection except that we
rise from death to life? So it is in Baptism, which is an image of death: when you are immersed
and rise up again, there, certainly, is an image of the Resurrection. So as Christs Resurrection is
interpreted by the Apostle as a regeneration, so also this resurrection from the font is a
regeneration.
St Ambrose, On the Sacraments 2:20-23, 3:1-2; (1972) tr. Yarnold
 Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE WRITINGS OF ST PROSPER OF AQUITAINE

There can be no reason to doubt that Jesus Christ our Lord died for the unbelievers and the
sinners. If there had been anyone who did not belong to these, then Christ would not have died
for all. But he did die for all without exception. There is no one, therefore, in all mankind who
was not, before the reconciliation which Christ effected in his blood, either a sinner or an
unbeliever.
The whole of mankind was under the sway of sin, in fetters because of the very same guilt.
No one of the ungodly, who differed only in their degree of unbelief, could be saved without
Christs redemption. This redemption spread throughout the world to become the good news for
all without any distinction. In fact, on the fiftieth day after the paschal feast on which the true
Lamb had offered himself as a victim to God, when the Apostles and those who were of one mind
with them were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the language of all the nations, a multitude
of men of different races, stirred by the miracle, flocked together, and in them the whole world
was to hear the Gospel of Christ. There were then assembled, as Scripture says, Parthians, and
Medes, and Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews
also and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, who all heard the wonderful works of God preached
in their own tongues. Their testimony was to spread far and wide also to the more distant nations.
We believe that Gods providence had willed the expansion of the Roman Empire as a preparation
for his design over the nations, who were to be called into the unity of the body of Christ: He first
gathered them under the authority of one Empire.
But the grace of Christianity is not content with the boundaries that are Romes. Grace has
now submitted to the sceptre of the Cross of Christ many peoples whom Rome could not subject
with her arms, though Rome by her primacy of the apostolic priesthood has become greater as the
citadel of religion than as the seat of power.

St Prosper of Aquitaine, The Call of all Nations II.16; Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 Thursday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A COMMENTARY ON AN EASTER HYMN OF ST GREGORY

NAZIANZEN BY ST DOROTHEUS OF GAZA

The Apostle urges us to worship God in a way worthy of rational creatures, by offering
him our bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to him. How are we to offer our
bodies to God as a living sacrifice? By no longer obeying the promptings of body and mind, but
being guided by the Spirit, and not gratifying the desires of our fallen nature. For that is how we
put to death what is earthly in us. Such a sacrifice is said to be living, holy, and pleasing to God.
But why is it called a living sacrifice? Because while an animal victim is sacrificed and
dies at the same time, Christians who offer themselves to God sacrifice themselves daily but
remain alive. As David says: For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted
as sheep for the slaughter.
Let us offer ourselves, says St Gregory; that is, let us sacrifice ourselves, let us die to
ourselves all day long, like all the Saints, for the sake of Christ our God, for the sake of him who
died for us.
But how did the Saints die to themselves? By not loving the world or anything in the
world, as the Catholic Epistles say, but renouncing everything that panders to the appetites, or
entices the eyes, and all pride in possessions, that is, pleasure-seeking, covetousness, and
vainglory, and taking up the Cross to follow Christ, crucifying the world to themselves and
themselves to the world. About this the Apostle says: Those who belong to Christ have crucified
the body, with its passions and desires. That is how the Saints died to themselves.
But how did they offer themselves? By not living for themselves, but according to Gods
commandments, giving up their own desires in order to obey God, and to love him and their
neighbours. As St Peter said: We have given up everything to follow you. What did he give up?
He had no money or property, no silver or gold. All he had was his fishing net, and that was old,
as St John Chrysostom remarked. But he gave up, as he said, all his own desires, all worldly
attachments, so that it is clear that if he had possessed wealth and property he would have
despised these as well. Then he took up his Cross and followed Christ, according to the words: It
is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. That is how the Saints offered themselves:
dying, as we said, to all disordered inclinations and self-will, and living only for Christ and his
commandments.

St Dorotheus of Gaza, Discourse 16,167-169 (SC 92:462-464); Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 Friday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH OF THE

SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

The Lord Jesus, having prayed at length to the Father, called to himself those he desired
and appointed twelve to be with him, whom he might send to preach the kingdom of God. These
Apostles he established in the form of a College or permanent assembly, at the head of which he
placed Peter who was chosen from amongst them. He sent them first of all to the children of
Israel and then to all peoples, so that, sharing in his power, they might make all peoples his
disciples and sanctify and govern them. Thus they would spread the Church, administer it under
the guidance of the Lord, and shepherd it until the end of the world. They were fully confirmed in
this mission on the day of Pentecost according to the Lords promise: You will receive power
when the Holy Spirit descends on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
So, just as by the Lords decree St Peter and the rest of the Apostles constitute a unique
apostolic College, so the Roman Pontiff, Peters successor, and the Bishops, the successors of the
Apostles, are related with and united to one another. By ancient discipline the Bishops throughout
the whole world lived in communion with one another and with the Roman Pontiff in a bond of
unity, charity and peace; they also held Councils in order to settle together, in a decision rendered
balanced and equitable by the advice of many, all questions of major importance. Both these facts
show clearly the collegiate character and structure of the episcopal order, which is confirmed by
the holding of Ecumenical Councils in the course of the centuries. Indeed, pointing to it also quite
clearly is the custom, dating from very early times, of summoning a number of Bishops to take
part in the elevation of one newly chosen to the highest sacerdotal office. A man is made a
member of the episcopal body by sacramental consecration and hierarchical communion with the
head and members of the College.
This College, composed of many members, is the expression of the diversity and
universality of the People of God. It also shows the unity of the flock of Christ because it is
assembled under one head. In it the Bishops, whilst loyally respecting the primacy and
preeminence of their head, exercise their own proper authority for the good of their faithful and of
the whole Church, whose organic structure and harmony are strengthened by the continued
influence of the Holy Spirit. The supreme authority over the whole Church, which this College
possesses, is exercised in a solemn way in an Ecumenical Council. Every Ecumenical Council is
confirmed or at least recognized as such by the successor of Peter and it is the prerogative of the
Roman Pontiff to convoke such Councils, to preside over them and to confirm them.

Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 19, 22

 Saturday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM ON THE MYSTERIES BY ST AMBROSE

What did you see? Water, certainly, but not water alone; you saw the Deacons ministering
there, and the Bishop asking questions and sanctifying. First of all, the Apostle taught you that
you should not consider the things which we see, but the things which are not seen, for the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Believe, then, that the
presence of the Godhead is there. Do you believe the working, and not believe the presence? How
can you have the working without the presence?
Consider, however, how ancient is this mystery which was prefigured even in the origin of
the world itself. In the very beginning, when God made the heaven and the earth, the Spirit, it is
said, moved upon the waters. Take another testimony. All flesh was corrupted by its iniquities, as
God said, My Spirit shall not remain among men, because they are flesh, by which he shows that
the grace of the Spirit is turned away by carnal impurity and the pollution of grave sin. Because
of this God, who desired to restore what was lacking, sent the flood and commanded the just man
Noah to go up into the ark. Noah, as the flood was subsiding, first sent out a raven which did not
return and then sent a dove which returned with an olive branch. You see the water, you see the
wood, you see the dove, do you still hesitate as to the mystery?
The water, then, is that in which the flesh is dipped, that all carnal sin may be washed
away and all wickedness therein buried. The wood is that on which the Lord Jesus was fastened
when he suffered for us. The dove is that in the form of which the Holy Spirit descended, as you
have read in the New Testament, who inspires in you peace of soul and tranquillity of mind. The
raven is the figure of sin, which goes forth and does not return, if, in you, too, righteousness is
preserved both inwardly and outwardly. You must not, then, trust your bodily eyes; that which is
not seen is seen more truly, for the object of sight is temporal, but what is discerned by the mind
and the spirit is eternal.
Is there, then, here any room left for doubt, when the Father clearly calls from heaven in
the Gospel narrative, and says: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased? When the
Son also speaks, upon whom the Holy Spirit showed himself in the likeness of a dove? When the
Holy Spirit also speaks, who came down in the likeness of a dove? When Scripture testifies that
at the prayer of Jerubbaal, fire came down from heaven, and again, when Elijah prayed, fire was
sent forth and consecrated the sacrifice.
Do not consider the merits of individuals, but the office of the priests. Or, if you look at the
merits, consider the priest as Elijah. Look also upon the merits of Peter and Paul who handed
down to us this mystery which they had received of the Lord Jesus. To those of old a visible fire
was sent that they might believe; for us who believe, the Lord works invisibly. Believe, then, that
the Lord Jesus who said, where two or three are, there am I also, is present at the invocation of
the priest. How much more where the Church is and where his Mysteries are does he truly impart
his presence!

St Ambrose, On the Mysteries, 3.8-12, 15; 5.26-28; NPNF 2.10 (1989) tr. de Romestin
 Sunday of the Fifth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM ON THE PASCHAL SOLEMNITY BY EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA

In the time of Moses the paschal lamb was sacrificed only once a year, on the fourteenth
day of the first month toward evening, but we of the new covenant celebrate our Passover every
week on the Lords day. We are continually being filled with the body of the Saviour and sharing
in the blood of the Lamb. Daily we gird ourselves with chastity and prepare, staff in hand, to
follow the path of the Gospel. Leaning on the rod that came forth from the root of Jesse, we are
always departing from Egypt in search of the solitude of the desert. We are constantly setting out
on our journey to God and celebrating the Passover. The Gospel would have us do these things
not only once a year but daily.
We hold our eucharistic celebration every week on the day of our Lord and Saviour, for
this is our paschal feast, the feast of the true Lamb who redeemed us. We do not circumcise the
body with a knife, but with the sharp edge of the word of God we cut away all evil from our
souls. We use no unleavened bread, except for that of sincerity and truth. Grace has freed us from
outworn Jewish customs and created us anew in the image of God. It has given us a new Law, a
new circumcision, a new Passover, and made us Jews inwardly, thus releasing us from our former
bondage.
On the fifth day of the week, while having supper with his disciples, the Saviour said to
them: With all my heart I have longed to eat this Passover with you. It was not the old Jewish
Passover that he desired to share with his disciples, but the new Passover of the new covenant
that he was giving to them, and that many prophets and upright people before him had longed to
see. He proclaimed his desire for the new Passover which he, the Word himself, in his infinite
thirst for the salvation of the whole human race, was establishing as a feast to be celebrated by all
peoples everywhere. The Passover of Moses was not for all peoples, indeed it could not be,
because the Law allowed it to be celebrated only in Jerusalem. Christs desire, then, must have
been not for that old Passover, but for the saving mystery of the new covenant which was for
everyone.
And so we too should eat this Passover with Christ We should cleanse our minds of all the
leaven of evil and wickedness and be filled with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,
becoming Jews inwardly, in our souls, where the true circumcision takes place. We should anoint
the lintel of our mind with the blood of the Lamb who was sacrificed for us, and so ward off our
destroyer. We should do this not only once a year, but every week, continually.
On the day before the Sabbath we fast in memory of our Saviours Passion, as the Apostles
were the first to do when the bridegroom was taken from them. On the Lords day we receive life
from the sacred body of our saving Passover and our souls are sealed with his precious blood.

Eusebius of Caesarea, On the Paschal Solemnity 7.9.10-12 (PG 24:701-706); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Monday of the Fifth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A HOMILY BY ST ANASTASIUS OF ANTIOCH

Christ, who had shown by his words and actions that he was truly God and Lord of the
universe, said to his disciples as he was about to go up to Jerusalem: We are going up to
Jerusalem now, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the Gentiles and the chief priests and
scribes to be scourged and mocked and crucified.
These words bore out the predictions of the prophets, who had foretold the death he was to
die in Jerusalem. From the beginning Holy Scripture had foretold Christs death, the sufferings
that would precede it, and what would happen to his body afterward. Scripture also affirmed that
these things were going to happen to one who was immortal and incapable of suffering because
he was God.
Only by reflecting upon the meaning of the incarnation can we see how it is possible to say
with perfect truth both that Christ suffered and that he was incapable of suffering, and why the
Word of God, in himself incapable of suffering, came to suffer. In fact we could have been saved
in no other way, as Christ alone knew and those to whom he revealed this truth. For he knows all
the secrets of the Father, even as the Spirit penetrates the depths of all mysteries.
It was necessary for Christ to suffer: his Passion was absolutely unavoidable. He said so
himself when he called his companions dull and slow to believe because they failed to recognize
that he had to suffer and so enter into his glory. Leaving behind him the glory that had been his
with the Father before the world was made, he had gone forth to save his people. This salvation,
however, could be achieved only by the suffering of the author of our life, as Paul taught when he
said that the author of our life himself was made perfect through suffering. Because of us he was
deprived of his glory for a little while, the glory that was his as the Fathers only begotten Son,
but through the Cross this glory is seen to have been restored to him in a certain way in the body
that he had assumed. Explaining what water the Saviour referred to when he said: He that has
faith in me shall have rivers of living water flowing from within him, John says in his Gospel that
he was speaking of the Holy Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive, for the Spirit
had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The glorification he meant was
his death upon the Cross for which the Lord prayed to the Father before undergoing his Passion,
asking his Father to give him the glory that he had in his presence before the world began.

St Anastasius of Antioch, Oration 4,1-2 (PG 89:1347-1349); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

Your Graces will have noticed when the book of the Acts of the Apostles was being read
that Paul was talking at Athens. The Athenians enjoyed a great reputation among other peoples
for every kind of learning. The city was the native home of great philosophers. From it had spread
through the rest of Greece and other countries of the world a complex variety of philosophies.
Thats where the Apostle was talking, thats where he was proclaiming Christ crucified, to the
Jews indeed a stumbling block, to the nations folly; but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks
alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. When he finished his address and they
heard mention of the resurrection of the dead, which is the most distinctive point of the faith of
Christians, some of them scoffed, while others said, We will hear you again on this matter.
Now, there is one overriding concern common to all philosophers within which they divide
up into five different sets of special opinions. In common, all philosophers strive by dedication,
investigation, discussion, by their way of life, to lay hold of the blessed life. This is their one
reason for philosophising; but I rather think the philosophers also have this in common with us. I
mean, if I were to ask you why you became Christians, every single one of you would answer me
truthfully: For the sake of the blessed life. Therefore the urge for the blessed life is common to
philosophers and Christians, and I would even say common to the whole human race. People who
are good, after all, are good in order to be happy, and those who are bad would not be bad unless
they hoped they would thereby be made happy.
Now set before your eyes Epicureans, Stoics, and the Apostle; that is: Epicureans, Stoics,
and Christians. Lets first question the Epicureans on what thing it is that makes life happy. They
answer, Bodily pleasure. The Stoic answers: A virtuous mind. The Christian: The gift of God.
And so brethren, in front of our very eyes Epicureans and Stoics are debating with the Apostle,
and teaching us by their debate what we should reject and what we ought to choose. A virtuous
mind is something very praiseworthy; but tell me, Stoic, where do you get it from? It is not really
your virtuous mind that makes you happy, but the one who has given you virtue, who has inspired
you to desire it, and granted you the capacity for it.
There is no life that deserves the name, to be called life, but a blessed life; and there can be
no blessed life that is not eternal. This is what everybody wants: truth and life. But how is one to
get to such a great possession, such a grand fortune? The philosophers have worked out for
themselves ways that go wrong. They have missed the true way, because God opposes the proud.
We would also miss it, unless it had come to us. Thats why the Lord says, I am the way. Lazy
traveller, you didnt want to come to the way; the way came to you. You were inquiring how you
should go: I am the way; you were asking where you should go: I am the truth and the life. This is
the doctrine of Christians; certainly not something to be set beside the doctrines of the
philosophers, but to be set incomparably above them, whether the sordid one of the Epicureans,
or the arrogant one of the Stoics.

St Augustine, Sermon 150, 1-2, 4, 8-10; WSA (1992) tr. Hill

 Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE LIFE IN CHRIST BY NICHOLAS CABASILAS

After receiving the Sacrament of Chrismation, we approach the Holy Table, the
consummation of our life in Christ, which leaves no further happiness to be desired. Now it is no
longer a question of sharing in Christs death or burial or in a higher kind of life, but of
welcoming the risen Lord himself. It is no longer the gifts of the Spirit that we receive, insofar as
we are able, but our benefactor himself, the very temple that enshrines all gifts.
Christ is present in each of the Sacraments: he himself confirms us and cleanses us, and he
is our food. He is present to those receiving the Sacraments of initiation, though in different ways.
In Baptism he takes away the stain of sin and imprints his own image on the baptized. In
Chrismation he brings into action the gifts of the Holy Spirit, of which his own flesh is the
repository. But when he leads communicants to his Table and gives them his body to eat he
completely transforms them, raising them to his own level. This is the last Sacrament we receive
because it is impossible to go beyond it or to add to it anything whatever.
We remain imperfect even after Baptism has produced in us its full effect because we have
not yet received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are given in Chrismation Those baptized by
Philip did not receive the Holy Spirit simply by the grace of Baptism: it was necessary for John
and Peter to lay their hands on them. As Scripture says, the Holy Spirit had not yet come down on
any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid
their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Yet even among those who had been filled with the Spirit and who prophesied, spoke in
tongues and displayed other such gifts, there were some in the time of the Apostles who were so
far from being divine and spiritual as to be guilty of envy, rivalry, contention, and other similar
vices. This is what Paul referred to when he wrote to them: You are still unspiritual and are living
on a purely human plane. They were indeed spiritual by reason of the graces they had received,
but these graces did not suffice to free them from all sinfulness. With the Eucharist, however, it is
different. No such charge can be brought against those in whom the Bread of Life, which has
saved them from death, has had its full effect and who have not brought to this feast any wrongful
dispositions. If this Sacrament is fully effective it is quite impossible for it to allow the slightest
imperfection to remain in those who receive it.
If you would know the reason for this, it is because through communion, in fulfilment of
his promise, Christ dwells in us and we in him. He lives in me, he said, and I in him. When Christ
lives in us, what can we lack? When we live in Christ, what more can we desire? We at once
become spiritual in body and soul and in all our faculties because our soul is united to his soul,
our body to his body, our blood to his blood. The consequence is that the higher prevails over the
lower, the divine over the human. As Paul says, referring to the Resurrection: What is mortal is
swallowed up by life. And elsewhere he writes: It is no longer I who live: it is Christ who lives in
me.

Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 4 (PG 150:582-583); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Thursday of the Fifth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE LIFE IN CHRIST BY NICHOLAS CABASILAS

The purpose of Chrismation is to enable us to share in the power of the Holy Spirit. This
anointing brings the Lord Jesus himself to dwell in us, our only salvation and hope. Through him
we are made sharers in the Holy Spirit and are led to the Father. Unfailingly it procures for
Christians those gifts that are needed in every age, gifts such as faith, reverence for God, prayer,
love, and purity. It does so even though many are unaware of having received such gifts. Many do
not know the power of this Sacrament or even that there is a Holy Spirit, as it says in the Book of
Acts, because they were anointed before reaching the age of reason and afterward they blinded
their souls by sin. Nevertheless, the Spirit does in truth give the newly initiated his gifts,
distributing them to each one as he wills; and our Lord, who promised to be with us always, never
ceases to shower blessings on us.
Chrismation cannot be superfluous. We obtain the remission of our sins in Baptism and we
receive the body of Christ at the Altar. These Sacraments will remain until the unveiled
appearance of their author. It cannot be doubted, then, that Christians also enjoy the benefits that
belong to this holy anointing and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. How could some Sacraments
be fruitful and this one without effect? How can we believe that Saint Pauls words: He who
promised is faithful, apply to some Sacraments but not to this one? If we discount the value of
any Sacrament we must discount the value of all, since it is the same power that acts in each of
them, it is the immolation of the same Lamb, it is the same death and the same blood that gives
each of them its efficacy.
The Holy Spirit is given to some, as St Paul says, to enable them to do good to others and
to edify the Church by prophesying, teaching revealed truth, or healing the sick by a mere word.
The spirit is given to others for their own sanctification, imparting to them a shining faith and
reverence for God, or making them outstanding in purity, charity, or humility.

Nicholas Cabaslilas, The Life in Christ, 3 (PG 150:574-575); Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 Friday of the Fifth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE LETTERS OF ST AUGUSTINE

In accordance with ancient prediction, he comes: the promised Christ; and in his birth, life,
words, and actions, in his Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension, all that the prophets
foretold is fulfilled. He sends the Holy Spirit upon the believers as they are all gathered together
in one place, waiting with expectant longing for the promised gift. And as soon as they are filled
with the Holy Spirit, they begin to speak in the languages of every nation, to refute errors boldly,
to preach the saving truth of the Gospel, to urge people to repent of their former sinful lives, and
to promise them the grace of Gods forgiveness. Their proclamation of the true religion and of
Gods loving kindness is confirmed by signs and wonders. Unbelievers stir up cruel persecution
against them. They endure what they have been warned to expect, they hope for what they have
been promised, and they teach what they have been commanded. Few in number, they are no
sooner dispersed throughout the world than they convert whole peoples with marvellous ease; in
the midst of their enemies they grow in strength. Persecution multiplies them; no suffering, no
trial can hinder them from spreading to the very ends of the earth. Once a despised hand ful of
ignorant men, they become a noble company of enlightened teachers, brilliantly gifted and of
polished speech, who press into Christs service for the preaching of the Gospel all the skill and
experience of the wise, the eloquent, and the learned.
Now in adversity, now in prosperity, they vigilantly practice patience and self-control, and
in the calamities which exhaust the earth and herald the final consummation at the end of the
world, they discern the fulfilment of prophecy and so look forward with increased confidence to
the eternal happiness of their heavenly country. Although in all these events unbelieving and
godless nations continue to rage against the Church of Christ, the Church gains the victory by its
endurance and by the profession of a faith unshaken by the cruelty of its adversaries.
For long ages the truth lay hidden behind mysterious prophecies, but now it is revealed in
the sacrifice of Christ, and those sacrificial rites which foreshadowed it are abolished by the
destruction of the Jewish temple. By degrees the temples of the heathen divinities are also being
destroyed together with their images and impious rites, as the prophets foretold. Under cover of
Christs name heresies spring up against his very person. This too was predicted, but by means of
such errors the doctrines of our holy faith are developed.
All these things we now see accomplished in fulfilment of the Scriptures, and from so
many important instances of fulfilled prophecy we confidently look forward to the fulfilment of
the remainder. Is there anyone, then, longing for eternity and conscious of the shortness of this
present life, who can resist such clear and perfect proofs of the divine origin of our faith?

St Augustine, Letter 137, 16 (PL 33:523-524); Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 Saturday of the Fifth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE FIRST APOLOGY IN DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS BY ST

JUSTIN MARTYR

None may share the Eucharist with us unless they believe that what we teach is true;
unless they are washed in the regenerating waters of Baptism for the remission of their sins; and
unless they live in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.
We do not consume the eucharistic bread and wine as ordinary food and drink, for we have
been taught that as Jesus Christ our Saviour became a man of flesh and blood by the power of the
Word of God, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilates for its nourishment becomes
the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of his own words contained in the prayer
of thanksgiving.
The Apostles in their recollections, which are called Gospels, handed down to us what
Jesus commanded them to do. They tell us that he took bread, gave thanks and said: Do this in
memory of me, this is my body. In the same way he took the cup, he gave thanks and said: This is
my blood, and he distributed it only to them. Ever since then we have constantly reminded one
another of these things. The rich among us help the poor and we are always united. For all that we
receive we praise the Creator of the universe through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy
Spirit
On Sunday we have a common assembly of all our members, whether they live in the city
or in the outlying districts. The recollections of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are
read as long as time permits. When the reader has finished, the president of the assembly speaks
to us, urging everyone to imitate the examples of virtue we have heard about in the readings.
Then we all stand up together and pray.
On the conclusion of our prayer, bread and wine and water are brought forward. The
president offers prayers and gives thanks to the best of his ability, and the people give their assent
by saying, Amen. The Eucharist is distributed, everyone present communicates, and the
Deacons take it to those who are absent
The wealthy if they wish may make a contribution, and they themselves decide the
amount. The collection is placed in the custody of the president, who uses it to help the orphans
and widows and all who for any reason are in distress, whether because they are sick, in prison, or
away from home. In a word, he takes care of all who are in need.
We hold our common assembly on Sunday because it is the first day of the week the day
on which God put darkness and chaos to flight and created the world, and because on that same
day our Saviour Jesus Christ rose from the dead. For he was crucified on Friday and on Sunday
he appeared to his Apostles and disciples and taught them the things that we have passed on for
your consideration.
St Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66-67; Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Sunday of the Sixth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A HOMILY ON ST JOHNS GOSPEL BY ST AUGUSTINE

The Lord said, I tell you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going away, because
unless I go the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go I will send him to you.
In other words, it is to your advantage that I should be taken from you as I am now, in the
condition of a servant. Now indeed I dwell among you as the Word made flesh; but I do not want
you to go on loving me with a merely natural affection, content with babys milk and lacking any
ambition to leave the nursery. It is for your own good that I am going away, because unless I do
the Advocate will not come to you. So far I have given you nothing but childrens food. Unless I
wean you, you will never have any appetite for solid meat. As long as you cling to my bodily
presence in a purely natural way you will remain incapable of receiving the Holy Spirit.
A question arises, however: when the Lord said that he had to go before the Advocate
could come to the disciples, and that if he went he would send him to them, did he mean that it
was impossible for him to send the Holy Spirit while he was still on earth? Surely no one would
make such an assertion. He had never left the dwelling-place of the Spirit; nor had he come from
the Father in such a way as no longer to be with the Father. Besides, how could it have been
impossible for Christ to send the Holy Spirit while he was yet on earth, when we know he had
received the abiding presence of the Spirit at his Baptism? In fact, we know that he and the Holy
Spirit were inseparable.
What this Gospel passage means is that the disciples could not receive the Holy Spirit as
long as they only knew Christ according to the flesh. Hence the assertion made by the Apostle
Paul after he himself had received the Holy Spirit: Even if we used to think of Christ according
to the flesh, we do so no longer. When we know the incarnate Word spiritually, our knowledge
even of his flesh becomes more than merely according to the flesh. This, without any doubt, is the
lesson their good Master wanted to give the disciples when he told them he was going away for
their own good, otherwise the Advocate would not come to them.
The withdrawal of Christs bodily presence from his disciples meant not only that the Holy
Spirit would come to them, but that the Father and the Son would also dwell with them in a
spiritual manner. Christs departure did not mean that the Holy Spirit would simply take his place.
It meant rather that together with Christ the Spirit would make his home in the hearts of the
disciples. If this were not so, what would become of our Lords promise to be with his disciples
always, to the end of time? And what of that other saying of his, The Father and I will come to
him and make our home with him? The fact is that our Lord promised to send the Holy Spirit in
such a way that he himself would always remain with his disciples. And when through the
coming of the Spirit their purely natural and human affections had become spiritualised, then they
would be capable of the indwelling of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

St Augustine, Commentary on Johns Gospel, 94.4-5 (PL 35:1869-1870);Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Monday of the Sixth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST MAXIMUS OF TURIN

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it
bears much fruit. Our Lord blossomed afresh when he rose from the tomb, and he bore fruit
when he ascended to heaven. As a flower he burgeoned from the depths of the earth; as the fruit
he took his place on his lofty throne. Enduring the torment of the Cross alone, he is that grain
which he himself describes; surrounded by his Apostles, now unshakeable in their faith, he is the
fruit. In his converse with his disciples during those forty days after his Resurrection, he taught
them the fullness of mature wisdom, and reaped from them an abundant harvest by the life-giving
power of his words. Then he ascended to heaven, bringing his Father the fruits of his incarnate
life, and leaving in his disciples the seed of holiness. Just as the eagle leaves the low lying
ground, makes for the heights, and climbs high to heaven, in like manner our Saviour left the
lower regions, made for the heights of Paradise, and reached heavens highest summit.
But what of the fact that an eagle often steals its prey by carrying off what belongs to
another? Even so, our Saviour did something not unlike that, for in a manner of speaking he stole
his prey when he snatched the manhood he had assumed from the jaws of hell and carried it off to
heaven, freeing the human race from slavery to an alien prince, that is, from the power of the
devil, and leading it captive into a higher captivity. As the prophet says, Ascending on high he led
captivity captive; he gave gifts to men. The undoubted meaning of these words is this: that since
the devil held the human race captive, our Lord, by wresting it from him, took it captive himself
and as the prophet tells us led that very captivity to the heights of heaven. Both captivities do
indeed bear the same name, but they differ one from the other. The devils captivity means
enslavement; Christs, on the contrary, means restoration to freedom.

St Maximus of Turin, Sermon 56, 1-2 (CCL 23:224-225); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON ON THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST BY ST GREGORY

OF NYSSA

The Gospel describes the Lords life upon earth and his return to heaven. But the sublime
prophet David, as though unencumbered by the weight of his body, rose above himself to mingle
with the heavenly powers and record for us their words as they accompanied the Master when he
came down from heaven. Ordering the angels on earth entrusted with the care of human life to
raise the gates, they cried: Lift up your gates, you princes; be lifted up you everlasting doors. Let
the King of glory enter.
But because wherever he is, he who contains all things in himself makes himself like those
who receive him, not only becoming a man among men, but also when among angels conforming
his nature to theirs, the gatekeepers asked: Who is this King of glory?
He is the strong one, they were told, mighty in battle, the one who is to grapple with and
overthrow the captor of the human race who has the power of death. When this last enemy has
been destroyed, he will restore us to freedom and peace.
Now the mystery of Christs death is fulfilled, victory is won, and the Cross, the sign of
triumph, is raised on high. He who gives us the noble gifts of life and a kingdom has ascended
into heaven, leading captivity captive. Therefore the same command is repeated. Once more the
gates of heaven must open for him. Our guardian angels, who have now become his escorts, order
them to be flung wide so that he may enter and regain his former glory. But he is not recognized
in the soiled garments of our life, in clothes reddened by the winepress of human sin. Again the
escorting angels are asked: Who is this King of glory? The answer is no longer, The strong one,
mighty in battle, but, The lord of hosts, he who has gained power over the whole universe, who
has recapitulated all things in himself who is above all things, who has restored all creation to its
former state: He is the King of glory.
You see how much David has added to our joy in this feast and contributed to the gladness
of the Church. Therefore as far as we can let us imitate the prophet by our love for God, by
gentleness and by patience with those who hate us. Let the prophets teaching help us to live in a
way pleasing to God in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

St Gregory of Nyssa, On the Ascension (Jaeger 9.1.323-327); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY THE VENERABLE JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

Christs going to the Father is at once a source of sorrow because it involves his absence,
and of joy because it involves his presence. And out of the doctrine of his Resurrection and
Ascension spring those Christian paradoxes, often spoken of in Scripture, that we are sorrowing
yet always rejoicing; as having nothing yet possessing all things.
This, indeed, is our state at present; we have lost Christ and we have found him; we see
him not, yet we discern him. We embrace his feet, yet he says, Touch me not. How is this? It is
thus: we have lost the sensible and conscious perception of him; we cannot look on him, hear
him, converse with him, follow him from place to place; but we enjoy the spiritual, immaterial,
inward, mental, real sight and possession of him; a possession more real and more present than
that which the Apostles had in the days of his flesh, because it is spiritual, because it is
invisible. When he says that he should go away, and come again and abide forever, he is speaking
not merely of his omnipresent, divine nature, but of his human nature. As being Christ he says
that he, the incarnate mediator, shall be with his Church forever.
But again, you may be led to explain his declaration thus: He has come again, but in his
Spirit; that is, his Spirit has come instead of him; and when it is said that he is with us, this only
means that his Spirit is with us. No one, doubtless, can deny this most gracious and consolatory
truth, that the Holy Spirit has come; but why has he come? To supply Christs absence or to
accomplish his presence? Surely to make him present. Let us not suppose that God the Holy
Spirit comes in such sense that God the Son remains away. No; he has not so come that Christ
does not come, but rather he comes that Christ may come in his coming. Through the Holy Spirit
we have communion with Father and Son. In Christ we are built together, says St Paul, for a
dwelling place of God through the Spirit. You are the temple of God, the Spirit of God dwells in
you. Thus the Holy Spirit does not take the place of Christ in the soul, but secures that place for
Christ. St Paul insists much on this presence of Christ in those who have his Spirit. Do you not
know, he says, that your bodies are the members of Christ? By one Spirit we are all baptized one
body you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it?
The Holy Spirit, then, vouchsafes to come to us, that by his coming Christ may come to us,
not carnally or visibly, but may enter into us. And thus he is both present and absent, absent in
that he has left the earth, present in that he has not left the faithful soul; or, as he says himself:
The world sees me no more, but you see me.

Ven. John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, VI, 121-127; Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 The Ascension Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON ON THE ASCENSION BY ST LEO THE GREAT

After the blessed and glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, when the divine
power in three days raised the true Temple of God which Jewish wickedness had destroyed, on
this very day, dearly beloved, the number of the forty holy days is completed. While the Lord
draws out the time of his bodily presence, our faith in his Resurrection is being strengthened by
the necessary signs. The Death of Christ had greatly disturbed the hearts of the disciples.
When the holy women, as the Gospel story has told us, proclaimed that the stone had been
rolled away from the tomb, the sepulchre was empty, and that angels were witnesses of the
living Lord, their words seemed to the Apostles and other disciples as pure nonsense.
The Spirit of Truth would by no means have permitted this wavering in human weakness
to enter the hearts of his preachers, if their trembling anxiety and questioning delay were not to
have established the foundations of our faith. Consequently, it was our doubts, our danger, that
was being considered in the Apostles. We, in the guise of the Apostles, were being instructed
against the slanders of the wicked and the proofs of earthly wisdom. Let us give thanks for
necessary slowness of the Holy Fathers. They doubted so that we need not doubt.
These days, dearly beloved, between the Resurrection of the Lord and his Ascension
provided the opportunity to confirm great mysteries, to reveal great secrets. In these days the
Holy Spirit was poured into all the Apostles by the breath of the Lord; and to blessed Peter above
all the others, after the keys of the kingdom, the care of the Lords sheep is entrusted. Through all
this time which went by between the Resurrection of the Lord and his Ascension, the providence
of God took thought for this: that they should recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as truly risen, who
was truly born, truly suffered, and truly died.
The result was that not only were they not afflicted with sadness but were filled with great
joy when the Lord went into the heights of heaven. Truly it was a great and indescribable source
of rejoicing when, in the sight of the heavenly multitudes, the nature of our human race ascended
over the dignity of all heavenly creatures, to pass the angelic orders and to be raised beyond the
heights of archangels. In its ascension it did not stop at any other height until this same nature
was received at the seat of the eternal Father, to be associated on the throne of the glory of that
One to whose nature it was joined in the Son.
Since the Ascension of Christ is our elevation, and since, where the glory of the Head has
preceded its, there hope for the body is also invited, let us exult, dearly beloved, with worthy joy
and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. Today we are established not only as possessors of
Paradise, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ, prepared more fully
for it through the indescribable grace of Christ which we had lost through the ill will of the devil.
Those whom the violent enemy threw down from the happiness of our first dwelling, the Son of
God has placed, incorporated within himself, at the right hand of the Father, the Son of God who
lives and reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

St Leo the Great, Sermon 73; FoC 93 (1996) tr. Freeland & Conway
 Friday of the Sixth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON ON THE ASCENSION BY ST LEO THE GREAT

The faith of the infant Church was increased by the Lords Ascension and strengthened by
the gift of the Spirit; it was to remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment, exile and hunger,
fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Even
the blessed Apostles, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by
so much teaching, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lords Passion and could not accept his
Resurrection without hesitation. Yet they made such progress through his Ascension that they
now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ's
divinity as he sat at the right hand of the Father, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no
longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realization that he had not left his
Father when he came down to earth, nor abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven.
The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and
transcendent way once he had entered into his Fathers glory. He now began to be indescribably
more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more
mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no
longer needed contact with Christs tangible body, in which as man he is inferior to the Father.
For while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those who believed in him was
now summoned to heights where, as the Fathers equal, the only-begotten Son is reached not by
physical handling but by spiritual discernment. This explains why our Lord said to the Church in
the person of Mary Magdalene, as she ran forward to cling to him: Do not touch me, for I have
not yet ascended to my Father. In other words, I do not want you to come to me corporeally, to
recognize me by what your bodily senses tell you; I want you to wait for something higher.
And when the eyes of his disciples, rapt in wonder, followed their ascending Lord to
heaven, there stood beside them two angels, in garments of marvellously shining whiteness, who
said to them: Men of Galilee, why are you standing looking up to heaven? This Jesus who has
been taken from you will come again in the same way as you have seen him going up to
heaven. By these words all the Churchs children have been taught to believe that Jesus Christ
will come again visibly in the same flesh in which he ascended, and that there can be no doubt
concerning the subjection of all things to him who was served by angels from the moment of his
birth. As it was an angel who announced to the blessed Virgin that Christ would be conceived of
the Holy Spirit, so too it was the song of heavenly beings that told the shepherds of his virginal
birth; and as the first attestations of his rising from the dead were delivered by messengers from
on high, so it was the task of angels to proclaim that he would come in the same flesh to judge the
world. All these things were intended to make us realise what tremendous angelic powers are to
accompany him when he comes to judge, since such mighty spirits ministered to him even when
he came to be judged himself.
St Leo the Great, Sermon 74, 3-4 (CCL 138A:457-459); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Saturday of the Sixth Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON ON THE ASCENSION BY ST LEO THE GREAT

Dearly beloved, let us exult with spiritual joy and rejoice before the Lord with the
thanksgiving that is his due, freely raising the eyes of our hearts to Christs dwelling place on
high. Let no earthly desires weigh down the minds that are summoned heavenward, no perishable
things encumber those predestined for what is everlasting, no deceptive snares entangle the feet
that have entered upon the path of truth. The faithful should make their way swiftly through these
temporal things, knowing themselves to be mere pilgrims in this earthly vale. The worlds
consolations may attract us, but they must be bravely passed by; it would be an unworthy act for
us to embrace them We are urged to such total dedication by the blessed Apostle Peter, who, in
that zeal for feeding Christs sheep, which his threefold profession of love for his Lord inspired in
him, entreats us as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from carnal desires which war against
the soul. And on whose behalf do these carnal desires wage war? Are they not tools of the devil,
who enjoys bringing upward-striving men into bondage to lust for passing pleasures and robbing
them of the place from which he himself has fallen? Against his plots each of the faithful must
keep careful watch, so that he may be able to repulse the enemy from whatever quarter he may
attack.
Now nothing is more effective against the devils wiles, dearly beloved, than tender
compassion and unselfish love; by these every sin can be either avoided or conquered. But such a
degree of virtue cannot be attained until its contrary is overcome; and there is surely nothing so
hostile to mercy and works of charity as the love of money, from the root of which all evil springs
up. Unless this noxious weed is starved to death, it is inevitable that the heart in which it has
taken root will bring forth the thorns and briars of vice rather than any flower of true virtue.
Therefore, my beloved, let us resist this most pestilent of evils and make charity our aim, for no
virtue can flourish without it; and then by the same path of love which Christ trod when he came
down to us, we shall be able to ascend to him, to whom, with God the Father and the Holy Spirit,
belong honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

St Leo the Great, Sermon 74, 5 (CCL 138A:459-461); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Sunday of the Seventh Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE COMMENTARY ON ST JOHNS GOSPEL BY ST CYRIL OF

ALEXANDRIA

As the reason for his departure, our Lord mentioned his desire to open the way for our
ascent to the heavenly places and to prepare a safe passage for us by making smooth the road that
had previously been impassable. For heaven was then completely inaccessible to us human foot
had never trodden that pure and holy country of the angels. It was Christ who first prepared the
way for our ascent there. By offering himself to God the Father as the firstfruits of all who are
dead and buried, he gave us a way of entry into heaven and was himself the first man the
inhabitants of heaven ever saw. The angels in heaven, knowing nothing of the sacred and
profound mystery of the incarnation, were astonished at his coming and almost thrown into
confusion by an event so strange and unheard of. Who is this coming from Edom? they asked; that
is, from the earth. But the Spirit did not leave the heavenly throng ignorant of the wonderful
wisdom of God the Father. Commanding them to open the gates of heaven in honour of the king
and master of the universe, he cried out: Lift up your gates, you princes, and be lifted up, you
everlasting doors, that the king of glory may come in.
And so our Lord Jesus Christ has opened up for us a new and living way, as Paul says, not
by entering a sanctuary made with hands, but by entering heaven itself to appear before God on
our behalf. For Christ has not ascended in order to make his own appearance before God the
Father. He was, is, and ever will be in the Father and in the sight of him from whom he receives
his being, for he is his Fathers unfailing joy. But now the Word, who had never before been
clothed in human nature, has ascended as a man to show himself in a strange and unfamiliar
fashion. And he has done this on our account and in our name, so that being like us, though with
his power as the Son, and hearing the command, Sit at my right hand, as a member of our race, he
might transmit to all of us the glory of being children of God.
As man then he appeared before the Father on our behalf, to enable us whom original sin
had excluded from his presence to see the Fathers face once more. As the Son he took his seat to
enable us as sons through him to be called children of God. So Paul, who claims to speak for
Christ, teaching that the whole human race has a share in the events of Christs life, says that God
has raised us up with him and enthroned its with him in heaven. To Christ as the Son by nature
belongs the prerogative of sitting at the Fathers side; this honour can rightly and truly be ascribed
to him alone. Yet because his having become man means that he sits there as one who is in all
respects like ourselves, as well as being as we believe God from God, in some mysterious way he
passes this honour on to us.

St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on St Johns Gospel, 9 (PG 74:182-183);Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 Monday of the Seventh Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE COMMENTARY ON ST JOHNS GOSPEL BY ST CYRIL OF

ALEXANDRIA

All who receive the sacred flesh of Christ are united with him as members of his body.
This is the teaching of St Paul when he speaks of the mystery of our religion that was hidden
from former generations, but has now been revealed to the holy Apostles and Prophets by the
Spirit; namely, that the Gentiles are joint-heirs with the Jews, that they are members of the same
body, and that they have a share in the promise made by God in Christ Jesus.
If in Christ all of us, both ourselves and he who is within us by his own flesh, are members
of the same body, is it not clear that we are one both with one another and with Christ? He is the
bond that unites us, because he is at once both God and man
With regard to our unity in the Spirit we may say, following the same line of thought, that
all of us who have received one and the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, are united intimately both
with one another and with God. Taken separately we are many, and Christ sends the Spirit who is
both the Fathers Spirit and his own, to dwell in each of us. Yet that Spirit, being one and
indivisible, gathers together those who are distinct from each other as individuals and causes
them all to be seen as a unity in himself. Just as Christs sacred flesh has power to make those in
whom it is present into one body, so the one, indivisible Spirit of God, dwelling in all, causes all
to become one in spirit
Therefore Saint Paul appeals to us to bear with one another charitably, and to spare no
effort in securing by the bonds of peace, the unity that comes from the Spirit. There is but one
body and one Spirit just as there is but one hope held out to us by Gods call. There is one Lord,
one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and works through all, and
is in all. If the one Spirit dwells in us, the one God and Father of all will be in us, and he through
his Son will gather together into unity with one another and with himself all who share in the
Spirit.
There is also another way of showing that we are made one by sharing in the Holy Spirit.
If we have given up our worldly way of life and submitted once for all to the laws of the Spirit it
must surely be obvious to everyone that by repudiating in a sense our own life, and taking on the
supernatural likeness of the Holy Spirit who is united to us, our nature is transformed so that we
are no longer mere men but also children of God, spiritual men, by reason of the share we have
received in the divine nature. We are all one, therefore, in the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit. We are one in mind and holiness, we are one through our communion in the sacred flesh of
Christ, and through our sharing in the one Holy Spirit.

St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on St Johns Gospel, 11.11 (PG 74:559-562); Word in Season III.1
 Tuesday of the Seventh Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE TREATISE ON THE HOLY SPIRIT BY ST BASIL THE GREAT

Who is there who can hear the names of the Holy Spirit and not feel exaltation in his soul,
not lift up his thoughts to that supreme nature? For he is called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of
truth who proceeds from the Father, the upright Spirit, the guiding Spirit. His chief and
distinguishing name is Holy Spirit.
To the Spirit all creatures turn for their sanctification; all who live virtuously seek him, and
are, by his influence, refreshed and helped towards their own natural end.
He is the source of holiness, the light of our understanding, for to every mind he offers his
own light for the discovery of truth.
Though by nature he is inaccessible, yet through his generosity men can receive him in
themselves. He fills all creatures with his power, but only those who are worthy can participate in
him. But all do not share him in the same measure; he distributes his power in proportion to men's
faith.
He is simple in essence, but manifold in power. He is present to each in his fullness, and in
his fullness is present everywhere. He is divided, but does not suffer by the division; all share in
him, but he remains whole, like a sunbeam whose kindly influence benefits each creature as
though it were present to that creature alone, and shines over land and sea and dissolves in the air.
So too the Spirit is present like the sun to each individual who is capable of receiving him,
and emits an influence which is sufficient to help them all, but is not divided; and they profit by
sharing in him according to their natures, not according to his power.
Through him hearts are raised on high, the weak are led by the hand, those who are
advanced gain perfection. He it is who shines on those whose hearts are purified and stainless and
makes them truly spiritual through the common communion they have with him.
Even as bright and shining bodies, once touched by a ray of light falling on them, become
even more glorious and themselves cast another light, so too souls that carry the Spirit, and are
enlightened by the Spirit, become spiritual themselves and send forth grace upon others.
This grace enables them to foresee the future, to understand mysteries, to grasp hidden
things, to receive spiritual blessings, to have their thoughts fixed on heavenly things, and to dance
with the angels. So is their joy unending, so is their perseverance in God unfailing, so do they
acquire likeness to God, so most sublime of all do they themselves become divine.

St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 9.22-23; The Divine Office II
 Wednesday of the Seventh Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH OF THE

SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

On the day of Pentecost when the Son had completed the work on earth assigned to him by
the Father, the Holy Spirit was sent to sanctify the Church unceasingly so that through Christ, in
the one Spirit, believers would have access to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life, a
fountain of water welling up to give a life that is eternal. Through him the Father gives life to
those who were dead because of their sins, and at last raises up their mortal bodies.
Building up and guiding the Church by means of varied gifts, both hierarchical and
charismatic, and adorning her with his fruits, the Spirit leads her into all truth and gives her unity
in communion and service. The Spirit is perpetually renewing the Churchs youth by the power of
the Gospel and leading her to perfect union with her Bridegroom. The Spirit and the bride say to
the Lord Jesus: Come!
The whole Church is thus shown to be a people made one as the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are one.
The body of believers as a whole, each one of whom has been anointed by the Holy One,
cannot err in matters of faith They demonstrate this special inerrancy of theirs when their super-
natural instinct of faith causes all from the Bishops down to the most humble lay person to agree
in matters of faith and morals.
Through this instinct of faith, which is awakened and kept alive by the Spirit of truth, the
people of God hold indefectibly to the faith once delivered to the Saints; with true insight they
penetrate it more deeply and they apply it ever more perfectly in their lives. They do all this under
the guidance of the sacred Magisterium of the Church to which they loyally defer, not as to the
words of men, but as to the very word of God.
The Holy Spirit sanctifies and guides Gods people and enriches them with virtues through
the Sacraments and other ministrations of the Church. He also distributes special graces among
believers in every state of life, apportioning his gifts to each one as he wills. By these gifts the
Spirit prepares them and makes them eager to undertake various tasks and offices which serve the
renewal and building up of the Church As Scripture says: The power of the Spirit is shown in a
particular way in each one for the good of all.
These charisms, the simpler and more widespread as well as the most outstanding, should
fill us with a sense of gratitude, for they are especially adapted to the needs of the Church and are
of the greatest value to her.

Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 4, 12; Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Thursday of the Seventh Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE COMMENTARY ON ST JOHNS GOSPEL BY ST CYRIL OF

ALEXANDRIA

After Christ had completed his mission on earth, it still remained necessary for us to
become sharers in the divine nature of the Word. We had to give up our own life and be so
transformed that we should begin to live an entirely new kind of life that would be pleasing to
God. This was something we could do only by sharing in the Holy Spirit.
It was most fitting that the sending of the Spirit and his descent upon us should take place
after the departure of Christ the Saviour. As long as Christ was with them in the flesh, it must
have seemed to believers that they possessed every blessing in him; but when the time came for
him to ascend to his heavenly Father, it was necessary for him to be united through his Spirit to
those who worshiped him, and to dwell in our hearts through faith. Only by his own presence
within us in this way could he give us the confidence to cry out, Abba, Father, make it easy for us
to grow in holiness and, through our possession of the all-powerful Spirit, fortify us invincibly
against the wiles of the devil and the assaults of other men.
It can easily be shown from examples both in the Old Testament and the New that the
Spirit changes those in whom he comes to dwell; he so transforms them that they begin to live a
completely new kind of life. Saul was told by the prophet Samuel: The Spirit of the Lord will take
possession of you, and you shall be changed into another man. St Paul writes: As we behold the
glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, that glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit,
transforms us all into his own likeness, from one degree of glory to another.
Does this not show that the Spirit changes those in whom he comes to dwell and alters the
whole pattern of their lives? With the Spirit within them it is quite natural for people who had
been absorbed by the things of this world to become entirely otherworldly in outlook, and for
cowards to become people of great courage. There can be no doubt that this is what happened to
the disciples. The strength they received from the Spirit enabled them to hold firmly to the love of
Christ and to face without fear the violence of their persecutors. Very true, then, was our
Saviours saying that it was to their advantage for him to return to heaven: his return was the time
appointed for the descent of the Holy Spirit.

St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on St Johns Gospel, 10 (PG 74:434); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Friday of the Seventh Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM THE MIRROR OF FAITH BY BLESSED WILLIAM OF SAINT-

THIERRY

If you feel a natural hesitation when confronted with the more profound mysteries of faith,
take courage, Christian soul, and say not contentiously but with loving submission: How can
these things be? Let your question be a prayer, let it be an expression of love, piety, and humble
longing. Seek not to explore the heights of the divine majesty, but to find salvation in the saving
deeds of God our Saviour.
Then the Messenger of Gods great design will reply: When the Paraclete comes, whom I
shall send you from the Father, he will remind you of everything and teach you all truth. Even as
no one knows the thoughts of man except the spirit of the man that is within him, so no one
comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
Hasten therefore to share in the Holy Spirit. He is with you when you call upon him; you
can call upon him only because he is already present. When he comes in answer to your prayer,
he comes with an abundance of divine blessings. He is the river whose streams give joy to the
city of God.
If when he comes he finds you humble, silent, and trembling at the words of God, he will
rest upon you and reveal what God the Father has hidden from the wise and the prudent of this
world. You will then begin to understand the things holy Wisdom could have told his disciples on
earth, but which they were unable to bear until the Spirit of truth came who was to teach them all
truth. We cannot hope to learn from the lips of any man truths that Truth himself could not
convey. For he himself has told us: God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in
spirit and truth, so those who wish to know him must seek understanding of their faith and
perception of its pure and simple truth only through the Holy Spirit.
In the darkness and ignorance of this life the Holy Spirit is the light that enlightens the
poor in spirit, the love that draws them on, the sweetness that attracts them, their access to God,
the love of the loving. The Spirit is devotion and piety. From one degree of faith to the next the
Spirit reveals to believers the justice of God, so that grace follows grace, and the faith that comes
from hearing gives place to a faith enlightened by understanding.

Blessed William of Saint-Thierry, The Mirror of Faith (PL 180:384); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Saturday of the Seventh Week in Eastertide Year II

A READING FROM ON THE TRINITY BY DIDYMUS THE BLIND

The Holy Spirit renews us in Baptism through his Godhead, which he shares with the
Father and the Son. Finding us in a state of deformity, the Spirit restores our original beauty and
fills us with his grace, leaving no room for anything unworthy of our love. The Spirit frees us
from sin and death, and changes us from the earthly men we were, made of dust and ashes, into
spiritual men, sharers in the divine glory, sons and heirs of God the Father, who bear a likeness to
the Son and are his coheirs and his brothers, destined to reign with him and to share his glory. In
place of earth the Spirit reopens heaven to us and gladly admits us into Paradise, giving us even
now greater honour than the angels, and by the holy waters of Baptism extinguishing the
unquenchable fires of hell.
We have two conceptions: to the human body we owe our first conception; to the divine
Spirit, our second. John says: To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power
to become children of God; who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God. All who believed in Christ, he says, received power to become children of
God, that is, of the Holy Spirit, and to gain kinship with God. To show that their parent was God
the Holy Spirit, he adds these words of Christ: I give you this solemn warning, unless one is born
of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Visibly, through the ministry of priests, the font gives symbolic birth to our visible bodies.
Invisibly, through the ministry of angels, the Spirit of God, whom even the minds eye cannot see,
baptizes into himself both our souls and bodies, giving them a new birth
Speaking quite literally, and also in harmony with the words, of water and the Spirit, John
the Baptist says of Christ: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Since we are
only vessels of clay, we must first be cleansed in water and then hardened by spiritual fire for
God is a consuming fire. We need the Holy Spirit to perfect and renew us, for the fire of the Spirit
can also wash us and the water of the Spirit can also melt us down and recast us.

Didymus the Blind, On the Trinity, 2.12 (PG 39:667-674); Word in Season III, 1st ed.
 Pentecost Year II

A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST AUGUSTINE

The blessed day has dawned for us on which holy Church makes her first radiant
appearance to the eyes of faith and sets the hearts of believers on fire. It is the day on which we
celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit by our Lord Jesus Christ, after he had risen from the dead
and ascended into glory. In the Gospel it is written: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and
drink. Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow from his heart. The evangelist
explains these words by adding: Jesus said this about the Spirit which those who believed in him
were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Now the glorification of Jesus took place when he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven,
but all was not yet accomplished. The Holy Spirit still had to be given; the one who made the
promise had to send him. This is precisely what occurred at Pentecost.
After being in the company of his disciples for the forty days following his Resurrection,
the Lord ascended into heaven, and on the fiftieth day the day we are now celebrating he sent
the Holy Spirit. The account is given in Scripture: Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the
rush of a mighty wind, and there appeared to them tongues like fire, which separated and came to
rest on each one of them, And they began to speak in other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them
power of utterance. That wind cleansed the disciples hearts, blowing away fleshly thoughts like
so much chaff. The fire burnt up their unregenerate desires as if they were straw. The tongues in
which they spoke as the Holy Spirit filled them were a foreshadowing of the Churchs
preaching of the Gospel in the tongues of all nations.
After the flood, in pride and defiance of the Lord, an impious generation erected a high
tower and so brought about the division of the human race into many language groups, each with
its own peculiar speech which was unintelligible to the rest of the world. At Pentecost, by
contrast, the humble piety of believers brought all these diverse languages into the unity of the
Church. What discord had scattered, love was to gather together. Like the limbs of a single body,
the separated members of the human race would be restored to unity by being joined to Christ,
their common head, and welded into the oneness of a holy body by the fire of love. Anyone
therefore who rejects the gift of peace and withdraws from the fellowship of this unity cuts
himself off from the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So then, my fellow members of Christs body, you are the fruits of unity and the sons of
peace. Keep this day with joy, celebrate it in freedom of spirit, for in you is fulfilled what was
foreshadowed in those days when the Holy Spirit came. At that time, whoever received the Holy
Spirit spoke in many languages, individual though he was. Now in the same way unity itself
speaks through all nations in every tongue. If you yourselves are established in that unity you
have the Holy Spirit among you, and nothing can separate you from the Church of Christ which
speaks in the languages of every nation of the world.

St Augustine, Sermon 271 (PL 38:1245-1246); Word in Season III, 2nd ed.
 Holy Trinity Year II

A READING FROM THE ORATION ON HOLY BAPTISM BY ST GREGORY

NAZIANZEN

Before all else, I beg you, keep the good deposit of the faith, by which I live and work;
with which I endure all that is so distressful and despise all delights; that is, hold fast to the
confession of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
This I commit unto you today; with this I will baptize you and make you grow. This I give
you to share, and to defend all your life, the one Godhead and power, found in the Three in unity,
and comprising the Three separately, not unequal in substance or nature, neither increased nor
diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just
as the beauty and the greatness of the heavens is one. This is the infinite conjunction of three
infinite Ones, each is God when considered in Himself; as the Father, so the Son; as the Son, so
the Holy Spirit.
No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendour of the Three; no
sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the
Three I think of him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am
thinking of escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that One so as to attribute a greater
greatness to the Rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot
divide or measure out the Undivided Light.
I should like to call the Father the greater, because from him flows both the equality and
the being of the equals, but I am afraid to use the word origin, lest I should make him the origin
of inferiors and thus insult him by creating a precedence of honour. For to put down those who
are from him gives no glory to him as the source. I fear you should take hold of this word
greater, and divide the nature, using the word greater in all senses, although in reality it does not
apply to the nature but only to origination. For in the consubstantial Persons there is nothing
greater or less in terms of substance.
Are you afraid of being reproached with Tritheism? Just accept this one good thing, the
unity in the Three, and leave me to fight the battle. Let me be the ship-builder, and you use the
ship. See how great is my indulgence; see the goodness of the Spirit; the war shall be mine, yours
the achievement; I will be under fire, and you shall live in peace; only join with your defender in
prayer. I have three stones which I will sling at the Philistine; I have three floods against the
brushwood with which I will consecrate the sacrifice with water, raising the most unexpected fire;
and I will throw down the prophets of shame by the power of the Sacrament.
What need have I any more of speech? It is the time for teaching, not for controversy. I
protest before God and the elect angels: be baptized in this faith. If there is any other writing on
your heart than that which my teaching demands, come and have the writing changed; I am no
unskilled calligrapher of these truths. I write that which is written upon my own heart; I teach that
which I have been taught, and I have kept it from the beginning even up to the time of these grey
hairs.
St Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 40, 41-44: NPNF 2.7, tr. Browne & Swallow
 Corpus Christi Year II

A READING FROM THE BULL TRANSITURUS OF POPE URBAN IV

Bishop Urban, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable brothers, Patriarchs,
Archbishops, Bishops, and other prelates of the Church, health and the apostolic blessing.
About to pass from this world to the Father, our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, since the
time of his Passion was at hand, instituted the great and wonderful Sacrament of his Body and
Blood, bestowing his Body as food and his Blood as drink. For, as often as we eat this bread and
drink this cup, we announce the death of the Lord. Indeed, at the institution of this Sacrament, he
himself said to the Apostles: Do this in memory of me: so that for us the special and outstanding
memorial of his love would be this venerable Sacrament; a memorial in which we attain the
corporeal Presence of the Saviour himself.
Other things which we remember we embrace spiritually and mentally: we do not
thereby obtain their real presence. However, in this sacramental commemoration, Jesus Christ is
present with us in his proper substance, although under another form. As he was about to ascend
into heaven, he said to the Apostles and their helpers, I will be with you all days even unto the
consummation of the world. He comforted them with a gracious promise that he would remain
and would be with them even by his corporeal presence. Therefore he gave himself as
nourishment, so that, since man fell by means of the food of the death-giving tree; man is raised
up by means of the food of the life-giving tree. Eating wounded us, and eating healed us. Thus the
Saviour says, My Flesh is real food. This bread is taken but truly not consumed, because it is not
transformed into the eater. Rather, if it is worthily received, the recipient is conformed to it.
We should celebrate continuously the memory of this memorial, because the more
frequently his gift and favour are looked upon, so much the more firmly are they kept in memory.
Therefore, although this memorial Sacrament is frequented in the daily solemnities of the Mass,
we nevertheless think suitable and worthy that, at least once a year especially to confound the
lack of faith and the infamy of heretics a more solemn and honourable memory of this
Sacrament be held. This is so because on Holy Thursday, the day on which the Lord himself
instituted this Sacrament, the universal Church, occupied with the reconciliation of penitents,
blessing the chrism, fulfilling the Commandments about the washing of the feet and many other
such things, is not sufficiently free to celebrate so great a Sacrament.
Moreover we know that, while we were constituted in a lesser office, it was divinely
revealed to certain Catholics that a feast of this kind should be celebrated generally throughout
the Church. Therefore, to strengthen and exalt the Catholic Faith, we decree that, besides the
daily memory that the Church makes of this Sacrament, there be celebrated a more solemn and
special annual memorial. Then let the hearts and mouths of all break forth in hymns of saving joy;
then let faith sing, hope dance, charity exult, devotion applaud, the choir be jubilant, and purity
delight. Then let each one with willing spirit and prompt will come together, laudably fulfilling
his duties, celebrating the Solemnity of so great a Feast.

Pope Urban IV, The Bull Transiturus; tr. OConnor (1988) from The Hidden Manna
 Sacred Heart Year II

A READING FROM CHRIST, THE IDEAL OF THE MONK BY BLESSED COLUMBA

MARMION

When a person fails in charity, and receives Christ in Holy Communion, he cannot say to
him: My Jesus, I love you with all my heart. It would be a lie, since he does not envelop Christ
and his members with a self-same love. He has not accepted the mystery of the Incarnation in its
totality; he stops at Christs individual manhood, and forgets the spiritual prolongation of the
Incarnation which is the Mystical Body of Jesus. So, then, when we communicate, we ought ever
to be ready to embrace, in one and the same charity, Christ and all that is united to him; for the
measure of the giving of Christ to our souls is that of our own donation to our brethren. The
Eucharist is a Sacrament of union with Christ, and of union between souls.
Thus a soul who draws near to our Lord, in Communion, in these dispositions of
unreserved love towards the neighbour is very pleasing to the Sacred Heart. Christ showers
magnificent gifts upon it; moreover, faults and shortcomings in respect to the other virtues are at
once forgiven, because of this fervent love it bears towards the members of Jesus. When, on
Maundy Thursday, the Abbot has communicated all the members of the monastic family, the
angels who behold us see that we are all one in Christ, each one being united to Christ Jesus, and
Christ being one, we are then truly one in him. We thus fulfil the dearest desire of the Word
Incarnate.
Indeed, at the supreme farewell hour, when Christ Jesus spoke for the last time with his
Apostles before entering into his sorrowful Passion and sacrificing himself for the worlds
salvation, what is the exclusive theme of his discourse and the first object of his prayer? Spiritual
charity. A new commandment I give unto you by this shall all men know that you are my
disciples Father that they may be one, as we also are one, I in them, and you in me, that they
may become perfectly one. That is the testament of Christs Heart.
Our Blessed Father St Benedict, in concluding his Rule, also leaves us as his last
testament, his magnificent teaching on good zeal. After having set forth in detail the ordering of
our life, he sums up all his doctrine in this short chapter. And what does he tell us? Does he speak
to us of prayer? Of contemplation? Of mortification? Undoubtedly, the holy Patriarch forgets
nothing of all this, as we have seen; but having reached the end of his long life so full of
experience, at the moment of closing the monastic code which contains for us the secret of
perfection, he speaks to us, before all else, of mutual love; he wishes, with that intense desire
which was that of Jesus at the Last Supper, to see us excel in most fervent love. This chapter is
the worthy crowning of a Rule which is but the pure reflection of the Gospel.

Blessed Columba Marmion, Christ, the Ideal of the Monk, 2.17.5