Thursday 9 July 2020
Thursday of week 14 in Ordinary Time
or Saint Augustine Zhao Rong and his Companions, Martyrs
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Thursday of week 14 in Ordinary Time
The Explanations of the Psalms by Saint Ambrose: Psalm 118
God's temple is holy, and you are his temple
My father and I will come to him and make our home with him. Open wide your door to the one who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Open your heart and run to meet the Sun of eternal light that illuminates all men. Indeed that true light shines on all; but if anyone closes his shutters against it then he will defraud himself of the eternal light. To close the doors of your mind is to exclude Christ. Of course he is capable of entering even so, but he does not want to force his way in or seize you against your will.
Born of the Virgin’s womb, he shone on the whole world to give light to all. It is received by those who desire the brightness of perpetual light that no night can obscure. For the sun that we see daily in the sky is followed by darkness and night; but the Sun of righteousness never sets, since evil cannot defeat wisdom.
Blessed is he, therefore, at whose door Christ comes knocking. Faith is the door of the soul, and if it is strong then it fortifies the whole house. Through this door Christ enters. Thus it is that the Church herself says, The voice of my brother is knocking on the door. Listen to him knocking, listen to him asking to be let in: Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my hair with the drops of night.
You see that when the Word of God knocks hardest on your door, it is when his hair is wet with the dew of the night. In fact he chooses to visit those who are in tribulation and trial, lest one of them be overwhelmed by distress. So his head is covered with dew, with drops, when his body is labouring hard. It is important to keep watch so that when the Bridegroom comes, he is not shut out. If you are asleep and your heart is not keeping watch, he will go away without knocking; but if your heart is alert for his coming, he knocks and asks for the door to be opened to him.
Thus you see that our soul has a door, but we have gates too, as the psalm says: Gates, raise your heads. Stand up, eternal doors, and let the king of glory enter. If you choose to raise your gates, the King of glory will come to you, celebrating the triumph of his own Passion. For righteousness has gates, as we see it written when the Lord Jesus speaks through his prophets: Open to me the gates of righteousness.
It is the soul that has its door, it is the soul that has its gates. To that door Christ comes and knocks, he knocks at the door. Open to him, therefore: he wishes to come in, the Bridegroom wishes to find you keeping watch.
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Other choices for today:
Saint Augustine Zhao Rong and his Companions, Martyrs
From the homily of Pope John Paul II at the canonization of the Chinese martyrs
The blood of the martyrs gives witness to Christian faith
“Your word is truth; sanctify us in your love”. This invocation, an echo of Christ’s prayer to the Father after the Last Supper, seems to rise from the host of saints and Blesseds whom the Spirit of God continues to raise up in his Church from generation to generation. Today, 2,000 years since the beginning of Redemption, we make these words our own, while we have before us as models of holiness Augustine Zhao Rong and his 119 companions, martyrs in China. God the Father “sanctified them in his love”, granting the request of the Son, who “opened his arms on the Cross, put an end to death and revealed the resurrection, in order to win for the Father a holy people”.
The Church is grateful to her Lord, who blesses her and bathes her in light with the radiant holiness of these sons and daughters of China. Young Ann Wang, a 14-year-old girl, withstood the threats of the torturers who invited her to apostatise. Ready for her beheading, she declared with a radiant face: “The door of heaven is open to all”, three times murmuring: “Jesus”. And 18-year-old Xi Guizi, cried out fearlessly to those who had just cut off his right arm and were preparing to flay him alive: “Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood will tell you that I am Christian”.
The other 85 Chinese men and women of every age and state, priests, religious and lay people, showed the same conviction and joy, sealing their unfailing fidelity to Christ and the Church with the gift of their lives. This occurred over the course of several centuries and in a complex and difficult era of the history of the Church in China.
Resplendent in this host of martyrs are also the 33 missionaries who left their land and sought to immerse themselves in the Chinese world, lovingly assimilating its features in the desire to proclaim Christ and to serve those people. Their tombs are there as if to signify their definitive belonging to China, which they deeply loved, although with their human limitations, and for which they spent all their energies. “We never wronged anyone”, Bishop Francis Fogolla replied to the governor who was preparing to strike him with his sword. “On the contrary, we have done good to many”.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Blessed Jane Scopelli, Virgin
From 'De vita Mariae-formi et Mariana' by Michael of St Augustine
Mystical life with Mary
We have shown previously how the deiform and divine life, life in God, is to be practised. Here we shall show how the mariform and marian life is to be practised.
In order to live in God, we must, in all our actions, omissions, and sufferings, perform the will of God. We must accept with a loving and reverent attitude of soul whatever trials may come to us whether they be corporal or spiritual, whether they arise from within ourselves or come from without, whether they are inflicted by our fellow men or by the demon himself. And we must keep our soul turned towards God, in contact with the Divine Essence as with the very air we breathe. Thus did our Saviour allow his works to be performed by his Father abiding within him, and thus did he labour and live with his soul lovingly and reverently inclined towards his heavenly Father.
Likewise can we live in Mary, our Mother, most worthy of all love. We can live in Mary if we will strive, in all our deeds and omissions, in our penances and trials and afflictions, to preserve and promote within ourselves a filial, tender inclination of soul towards Mary also – if we will strive always to aspire towards Mary as towards our most loving and most beloved Mother in God. Our love will then flow, as it were, from God to Mary and from Mary back to God.
It would seem that sometimes the Spirit of God causes such life in a soul through a superior gift of love. This gift brings about a superabundance or overflow of divine love which is then directed towards Mary, only to return again from her to God.
“Because you are sons of God, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father,” writes Saint Paul. From this we learn that the Spirit of Jesus abides in the children of God, producing in them, according to their capacity, a tender love for God the Father. But just as this Spirit produced in Jesus a filial love for his Eternal Father, so it also produced in him a filial affection for his most dear Mother, and this it will continue to do for all eternity. Is it any wonder, therefore, if the Spirit of Jesus which, in the hearts of the children of God cries Abba, Father (that is, produces love for the Father of Jesus), also cries from those same hearts Ave, Mater (that is, produces filial and reverential love and affection for Mary), even as happened in Jesus himself during his lifetime and happens now in heaven?
Therefore, to souls in love with Mary these words might well be addressed: “Because you are the sons and daughters of Mary, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, there to cry out: Ave, Mater” – that is, there to produce filial, tender love for Mary as a most dear and worthy Mother. For it is one and the same Spirit of Jesus which produces all in these souls; namely, both divine and marian love, without hindering either. Only think how this took place in Christ without prejudice to the highest perfection, and you will realise how it can take place in certain of Mary’s chosen children without prejudice to the contemplative life of perfection.
This all seems to be understandable enough. For what wonder is there if the Spirit of Christ, where it lives and dwells, has diverse operations: contemplation and love of God and contemplation and love of Mary, and so on? One and the same Spirit of Jesus, as we have said, accomplishes all this in the faithful soul, according to the capacity of each one and the desire of the Spirit.
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.