Saturday 30 May 2020
Saturday of the 7th week of Eastertide
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Saturday of the 7th week of Eastertide
A reading from a 6th-century African author
The Church in its unity speaks in the language of every nation
The disciples spoke in the language of every nation. At Pentecost God chose this means to indicate the presence of the Holy Spirit: whoever had received the Spirit spoke in every kind of tongue. We must realise, dear brothers, that this is the same Holy Spirit by whom love is poured out in our hearts. It was love that was to bring the Church of God together all over the world. And as individual men who received the Holy Spirit, speaks in the language of every people.
Therefore if somebody should say to one of us, “You have received the Holy Spirit, why do you not speak in tongues?” his reply should be, “I do indeed speak in the tongues of all men, because I belong to the body of Christ, that is, the Church, and she speaks all languages. What else did the presence of the Holy Spirit indicate at Pentecost, except that God’s Church was to speak in the language of every people?”
This way is the way in which the Lord’s promise was fulfilled: No one puts new wine into old wineskins. New wine is put into fresh skins, and so both are preserved. So when the disciples were heard speaking in all kinds of languages, some people were not far wrong in saying: They have been drinking too much new wine. The truth is that the disciples had now become fresh wineskins, renewed and made holy by grace. The new wine of the Holy Spirit filled them, so that their fervour brimmed over and they spoke in manifold tongues. By this spectacular miracle they became a sign of the Catholic Church, which embraces the language of every nation.
Keep this feast, then, as members of the one body of Christ. It will be no empty festival for you if you really become what you are celebrating. For you are the members of that Church which the Lord acknowledges as his own, being himself acknowledged by her, that same Church which he fills with the Holy Spirit as she spreads throughout the world. He is like a bridegroom who never loses sight of his own bride; no one could ever deceive him by substituting some other woman.
To you men of all nations, then who make up the Church of Christ, you the members of Christ, you, the body of Christ, you, the bride of Christ – to all of you the Apostle addresses these words: Bear with one another in love; do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Notice that when Paul urges us to bear with one another, he bases his argument on love, and when he speaks of our hope of unity, he emphasises the bond of peace. This Church is the house of God. It is his delight to dwell here. Take care, then, that he never has the sorrow of seeing it undermined by schism and collapsing in ruins.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Margaret Clitherow and the Yorkshire Martyrs
From "A true Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs Margaret Clitherow"
Margaret Clitherow's devotion to the martyred priests of York
After the priests had first suffered martyrdom at Knavesmire (all of which at most had been her ghostly fathers) and by their holy blood and death had sanctified their reproachful gallows, she greatly desired often to visit that place, for she called it her pilgrimage; and thither she would go, accompanied with two or three virtuous women. This being the common place for execution for all sorts of malefactors, distant half a mile from the centre of York, made the passage sometimes more difficult to her, because she might not adventure thither but by night because of spies, and only at such time as her husband was from home. Her desire was greater often to go thither, where so many of her ghostly fathers had shed their blood in witness of the Catholic faith, where they had triumphed over the world, the flesh, and the devil, from whence they had ascended into heaven, where she earnestly wished (if it were God’s will) for the same Catholic cause to end her life, and where she hoped one day God would be glorified in the memory of his martyrs. But by reason of this wicked time, her ghostly Father thought not good to permit her so often to go as she desired.
As I remember she went barefoot to the place, and kneeling on her bare knees even under the gallows, meditated and prayed so long as her company would suffer her. As I understand, her desire and request was, after she was condemned, that she might be carried to this place to suffer what cruelty they pleased, but they would not grant it; no doubt but by God’s Providence that her glorious death might sanctify some other profane place.
Copyright © 1996-2020 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.