Wednesday 5 May 2021
Wednesday of the 5th week of Eastertide
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Wednesday of the 5th week of Eastertide
From the Letter to Diognetus
The Christian in the world
Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.
Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonour, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.
To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.
Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Angelus, Priest, Martyr
From 'The Flaming Arrow' by Nicholas of France, prior general
Every creature moves the interior man to give praise to the Creator
Your first sons on Carmel, O holiest of Orders my Mother, were like stones mortared together in unfeigned charity, who held aloof from the least violation of what they had vowed when they made profession; while yet they strove, at home in their cells, to “ponder God’s law” and “watch at their prayers,” not because they were compelled to, but happily, moved by joy of spirit.
Remember, beloved Order, your worthiness in the days when you never failed to regale your hermits, our saintly forefathers, with spiritual sustenance of the richest, in pasturage unequalled, and to lead them forth to waters of unparalleled refreshment.
I tell you, my brothers, it is from Carmel that the brethren must climb to the Mountain – all those who deserve to be called “Carmelites,” in other words, who, on account of the excellence of their lives, will go from strength to strength in a steady ascent from the Mount of the Circumcision of Vices until they reach, as they surely will, the Mountain which is Christ.
In the desert all the elements conspire to favour us. The heavens, resplendent with the stars and planets in their amazing order, bear witness by their beauty to mysteries higher still. The birds seem to assume the nature of angels, and tenderly console us with their gentle carolling. The mountains too, as Isaiah prophesied, “drop down sweetness” incomparable upon us, and the friendly hills “flow with milk and honey” such as is never tasted by the foolish lovers of this world. When we sing the praises of our Creator, the mountains about us, our brother conventuals resound with corresponding hymns of praise to the Lord, echoing back our voices and filling the air with strains of harmony as though accompanying our song upon stringed instruments. The roots in their growth, the grass in its greenness, the leafy boughs and trees – all make merry in their own ways as they echo our praise; and the flowers in their loveliness, as they pour out their delicious fragrance, smile their best for the consolation of us solitaries. The sunbeams, though tongueless, speak saving messages to us. The shady bushes rejoice to give us shelter. In short, every creature we see or hear in the desert gives us friendly refreshment and comfort; indeed, for all their silence they tell forth wonders, and they move the interior man to give praise to the Creator – so much more wonderful than themselves.
Isaiah writes in figure of this joy that is to be found in solitude or in the desert: “The wilderness shall rejoice and shall flourish like the lily, it shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise.” And we find in the psalms: “The beautiful places of the wilderness shall grow lush, and the hills shall be girded with joy.”
Each wise solitary, resolute in his flight from the dangers of the world, longs to be so indissolubly united to Christ, the cornerstone, that he might say effectively with the Prophet: “It is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord.”
Copyright © 1996-2021 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.