Monday 23 November 2020
Monday of week 34 in Ordinary Time
or Saint Clement I, Pope, Martyr
or Saint Columbanus, Abbot and Missionary
or Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, Martyr
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Monday of week 34 in Ordinary Time
From a sermon of Saint Leo the Great, pope
Each man's reward will be suited to what he does
The Lord says: Unless your justice exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. How indeed can justice exceed, unless compassion rises above judgement? What is as right or as worthy as a creature, fashioned in the image and likeness of God, imitating his Creator who, by the remission of sins, brought about the reparation and sanctification of believers? With strict vengeance removed and the cessation of all punishment, the guilty man was restored to innocence, and the end of wickedness became the beginning of virtue. Can anything be more just than this?
This is how Christian justice can exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, not by cancelling out the law but by rejecting earthly wisdom. This is why, in giving his disciples a rule for fasting, the Lord said: Whenever you fast do not become sad like the hypocrites. For they disfigure their faces in order to seem to be fasting. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. What reward but that of human praise? Such a desire often puts on a mask of justice, for where there is no concern for conscience, untruthful reputation gives pleasure. The result is that concealed injustice enjoys a false reputation.
For the man who loves God it is sufficient to please the one he loves; and there is no greater recompense to be sought than the loving itself; for love is from God by the very fact that God himself is love. The good and chaste soul is so happy to be filled with him that it desires to take delight in nothing else. For what the Lord says is very true: Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. What is a man’s treasure but the heaping up of profits and the fruit of his toil? For as a man sows, so will he reap, and each man’s gain matches his toil; and where delight and enjoyment are found, there the heart’s desire is attached. Now there are many kinds of wealth and a variety of grounds for rejoicing; every man’s treasure is that which he desires. If it is based on earthly ambitions, its acquisition makes men not blessed but wretched.
But those who enjoy the things that are above and eternal rather than earthly and perishable, possess an incorruptible, hidden store of which the prophet speaks: Our treasure and salvation have come, wisdom and instruction and piety from the Lord: these are the treasures of justice. Through these, with the help of God’s grace, even earthly possessions are transformed into heavenly blessings; it is a fact that many people use the wealth which is either rightfully left to them or otherwise acquired, as a tool of devotion. By distributing what might be superfluous to support the poor, they are amassing imperishable riches, so that what they have discreetly given cannot be subject to loss. They have properly placed those riches where their heart is; it is a most blessed thing to work to increase such riches rather than to fear that they may pass away.
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Other choices for today:
Saint Clement I, Pope, Martyr
"Pope St Clement Adoring the Trinity" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (c.1730-1735).
From a letter of Pope St Clement I to the Corinthians
God's gifts are wonderful
Beloved, how blessed and wonderful are God’s gifts! There is life everlasting, joy in righteousness, truth in freedom, faith, confidence, and self-control in holiness. And these are the gifts that we can comprehend; what of all the others that are being prepared for those who look to him? Only the Creator, the Father of the ages, the all-holy, knows their grandeur and their loveliness. And so we should strive to be found among those who wait for him so that we may share in these promised gifts. And how is this to be, beloved brothers? It will come about if by our faith our minds remain fixed on God; if we aim at what is pleasing and acceptable to him, if we accomplish what is in harmony with his faultless will and follow the path of truth, rejecting all injustice, viciousness, covetousness, quarrels, malice and deceit.
This is the path, beloved, by which we find our salvation, Jesus Christ, the high priest of our sacrifices, the defender and ally in our helplessness. It is through him that we gaze on the highest heaven, through him we can see the reflection of God’s pure and sublime countenance, through him the eyes of our hearts have been opened, through him our foolish and darkened understanding opens towards the light, and through him the Lord has willed that we should taste everlasting knowledge. He reflects God’s majesty and is as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs.
Let us then serve in his army, brothers, following his blameless commands with all our might. The great cannot exist without the small, nor the small without the great; they blend together to their mutual advantage. Take the body, for example. The head is nothing without the feet, just as the feet are nothing without the head. The smallest parts of our body are necessary and valuable to the whole. All work together and are mutually subject for the preservation of the whole body.
Our entire body, then, will be preserved in Christ Jesus, and each of us should be subject to his neighbour in accordance with the grace given to each. The stronger should care for the weak, and the weak should respect the stronger. The wealthy should give to the poor, and the poor man should thank God that he has sent him someone to supply his needs. The wise should manifest their wisdom not in words but in good deeds, and the humble should not talk about their own humility but allow others to bear witness to it. Since, therefore, we have all this from him, we ought to thank him for it all. Glory to him for ever. Amen.
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Saint Columbanus, Abbot and Missionary
A stained glass window in the abbey of Bobbio.
From an instruction of Saint Columbanus
If only it is preserved, the likeness of God is man's greatest dignity
Moses wrote in the law: God made man in his image and likeness. Consider, I ask you, the dignity of these words. God is all-powerful. We cannot see or understand him, describe or assess him. Yet he fashioned man from clay and endowed him with the nobility of his own image. What has man in common with God? Or earth with spirit? – for God is a spirit. It is a glorious privilege that God should grant man his eternal image and the likeness of his character. Man’s likeness to God, if he preserves it, imparts high dignity.
If man applies the virtues planted in his soul to the right purpose, he will be like God. God’s commands have taught us to give him back the virtues he sowed in us in our first innocence. The first command is to love our Lord with our whole heart because he loved us first from the beginning, before our existence. Loving God renews his image in us. Anyone who loves God keeps his commandments, for he said: If you love me, keep my commandments. His command is that we love each other. In his own words: This is my command, that you love each other as I also have loved you.
True love is shown not merely in word, but in deed and in truth. So we must turn back our image undefiled and holy to our God and Father, for he is holy; in the words of Scripture: Be holy, for I am holy. We must restore his image with love, for he is love; in John’s words: God is love. We must restore it with loyalty and truth, for he is loyal and truthful. The image we depict must not be that of one who is unlike God; for one who is harsh and irascible and proud would display the image of a despot.
Let us not imprint on ourselves the image of a despot, but let Christ paint his image in us with his words: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you. But the knowledge that peace is good is of no benefit to us if we do not practise it. The most valuable objects are usually the most fragile; costly things require the most careful handling. Particularly fragile is that which is lost by wanton talk and destroyed with the slightest injury of a brother. Men like nothing better than discussing and minding the business of others, passing superfluous comments at random and criticizing people behind their backs. So those who cannot say: The Lord has given me a discerning tongue, that I may with a word support him who is weary should keep silent, or if they do say anything it should promote peace.
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.