Tuesday 15 September 2020
Our Lady of Sorrows
on Tuesday of week 24 in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Our Lady of Sorrows
From a sermon of St Bernard of Clairvaux
His mother stood by the cross
The martyrdom of the Virgin is set forth both in the prophecy of Simeon and in the actual story of our Lord’s passion. The holy old man said of the infant Jesus: He has been established as a sign which will be contradicted. He went on to say to Mary: And your own heart will be pierced by a sword.
Truly, O blessed Mother, a sword has pierced your heart. For only by passing through your heart could the sword enter the flesh of your Son. Indeed, after your Jesus – who belongs to everyone, but is especially yours – gave up his life, the cruel spear, which was not withheld from his lifeless body, tore open his side. Clearly it did not touch his soul and could not harm him, but it did pierce your heart. For surely his soul was no longer there, but yours could not be torn away. Thus the violence of sorrow has cut through your heart, and we rightly call you more than martyr, since the effect of compassion in you has gone beyond the endurance of physical suffering.
Or were those words, Woman, behold your Son, not more than a word to you, truly piercing your heart, cutting through to the division between soul and spirit? What an exchange! John is given to you in place of Jesus, the servant in place of the Lord, the disciple in place of the master; the son of Zebedee replaces the Son of God, a mere man replaces God himself. How could these words not pierce your most loving heart, when the mere remembrance of them breaks ours, hearts of iron and stone though they are!
Do not be surprised, brothers, that Mary is said to be a martyr in spirit. Let him be surprised who does not remember the words of Paul, that one of the greatest crimes of the Gentiles was that they were without love. That was far from the heart of Mary; let it be far from her servants.
Perhaps someone will say: “Had she not known before that he would not die?” Undoubtedly. “Did she not expect him to rise again at once?” Surely. “And still she grieved over her crucified Son?” Intensely. Who are you and what is the source of your wisdom that you are more surprised at the compassion of Mary than at the passion of Mary’s Son? For if he could die in body, could she not die with him in spirit? He died in body through a love greater than anyone had known. She died in spirit through a love unlike any other since his.
________
The ferial reading for today:
Tuesday of week 24 in Ordinary Time
St Augustine's sermon On Pastors
The example of St Paul
Once upon a time, when Paul was in great poverty and shut up in prison for proclaiming the truth, the brethren sent him what was necessary to relieve his poverty and meet his needs. He wrote to thank them: It was kind of you to share in my troubles. I have learnt to manage on whatever I have. I know how to live in plenty and how to live in want. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength. All the same, it was good of you to share with me in my hardships.
He rejoices, not so much at having his wants relieved as at the generosity of his friends. Thus he shows them what is truly good about their action; for he does not want there to be shepherds among them who feed themselves rather than their sheep.
What, then, was he asking for? It is not that I wish for your gifts, but that I demand that you should be fruitful. Not, in other words, that I should be filled, but that you should be not empty but abundant.
If you cannot, like Paul, earn your living by the work of your own hands, then by all means relieve your wants by accepting the milk that your sheep provide; but never neglect the weaknesses and needs of your flock. Do not seek to do well out of it, so that you appear to be proclaiming the Gospel only because you need the money. Give the light of the Word to the people who need illumination. For you are like lamps, as Scripture says: Let your loins be girded and your lamps lit, and No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in the sight of men, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven.
Now then, if a lamp is lit for you in your house, you add oil to make sure it doesn’t go out. On the other hand, if a lamp full of oil fails to shine then it does not deserve to be put on the lamp-stand: it may as well be smashed at once. So the means of living must be offered only as an act of charity and accepted only out of necessity. The Gospel must not be like something that is bought and sold, the price being the preachers’ livelihood. If you do sell it like that then you are cheapening a thing of great value. Accept the relief of your wants from the people, but receive the reward of your preaching from the Lord; for it is not right for the people to reward their pastors for serving them in the gospel of love. Let the pastors look for reward from the same source that the people look to for salvation.
Why are these pastors being rebuked? What is the charge against them? It is that they take the milk and clothe themselves with the wool but neglect the sheep from which these things come. They care not about Christ’s interests, but their own.
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.