Sunday 14 November 2021
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
A commentary of St Augustine on Psalm 95
Let us not resist the first advent, and the second will not terrify us
Then all the trees of the forest will exult before the face of the Lord, for he has come, he has come to judge the earth. He has come the first time, and he will come again. At his first coming, his own voice declared in the gospel: Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds. What does he mean by hereafter? Does he not mean that the Lord will come at a future time when all the nations of the earth will be striking their breasts in grief? Previously he came through his preachers, and he filled the whole world. Let us not resist his first coming, so that we may not dread the second.
What then should the Christian do? He ought to use the world, not become its slave. And what does this mean? It means having, as though not having. So says the Apostle: My brethren, the appointed time is short: from now on let those who have wives live as though they had none; and those who mourn as though they were not mourning; and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing; and those who buy as though they had no goods; and those who deal with this world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away. But I wish you to be without anxiety. He who is without anxiety waits without fear until his Lord comes. For what sort of love of Christ is it to fear his coming? Brothers, do we not have to blush for shame? We love him, yet we fear his coming. Are we really certain that we love him? Or do we love our sins more? Therefore let us hate our sins and love him who will exact punishment for them. He will come whether we wish it or not. Do not think that because he is not coming just now, he will not come at all. He will come, you know not when; and provided he finds you prepared, your ignorance of the time of his coming will not be held against you.
All the trees of the forest will exult. He has come the first time, and he will come again to judge the earth; he will find those rejoicing who believed in his first coming, for he has come.
He will judge the world with equity and the peoples in his truth. What are equity and truth? He will gather together with him for the judgement his chosen ones, but the others he will set apart; for he will place some on his right, others on his left. What is more equitable, what more true than that they should not themselves expect mercy from the judge, who themselves were unwilling to show mercy before the judge’s coming. Those, however, who were willing to show mercy will be judged with mercy. For it will be said to those placed on his right: Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world. And he reckons to their account their works of mercy: For I was hungry and you gave me food to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
What is imputed to those placed on his left side? That they refused to show mercy. And where will they go? Depart into the everlasting fire. The hearing of this condemnation will cause much wailing. But what has another psalm said? The just man will be held in everlasting remembrance; he will not fear the evil report. What is the evil report? Depart into the everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Whoever rejoices to hear the good report will not fear the bad. This is equity, this is truth.
Or do you, because you are unjust, expect the judge not to be just? Or because you are a liar, will the truthful one not be true? Rather, if you wish to receive mercy, be merciful before he comes; forgive whatever has been done against you; give of your abundance. Of whose possessions do you give, if not from his? If you were to give of your own, it would be largesse; but since you give of his, it is restitution. For what do you have, that you have not received? These are the sacrifices most pleasing to God: mercy, humility, praise, peace, charity. Such as these, then, let us bring and, free from fear, we shall await the coming of the judge who will judge the world in equity and the peoples in his truth.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Laurence O'Toole, Bishop
Stained glass window in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Wexford.
From a bull of Pope Honorius III
Progress by the example of such great virtue
As the faithful increase in number, the number of the people called from darkness to walk in the light of the Lord their God, as Isaiah the prophet calls them, his wonderful providence has raised up over these new peoples pastors to feed them with knowledge and doctrine, as he had promised in the words of Jeremiah: teachers in his Church to water the hearts of the faithful with the dew of their doctrine, to root out from them the thickets of vices and make them fertile for the seed of virtue and the fruit of good works.
All our enquiries have confirmed to us that Laurence was from his childhood brought up in holy learning, that in boyhood he had the seriousness of mature years, and that he had put away from him the allurements of the world’s vanities to a degree that belied his youth. When later he became archbishop of Dublin he made such further progress in virtue that he was totally dedicated to God: indefatigable in his prayer, stern in his bodily penances, unstinting in his almsgiving.
His holiness has been proved by his many miracles; and so, accepting this divine judgement making clear to us that he is in glory, we have enrolled this most holy man in the calendar of the saints, and decreed that his name be added to the brotherhood of the holy confessors, and that he is to be venerated by the faithful as one of their number. We have also laid it down that his holy feastday be from now on kept each year on the fourteenth day of November; and we ask you all, and exhort you in the Lord, that as you praise God with a devout mind, and in your zeal to make progress by the example of such great virtue, you humbly ask this most renowned confessor to intercede for you with God.
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All Carmelite Saints
From 'On Patience' by Blessed Baptist of Mantua
They will see Christ himself and his blessed Mother and all the saints in glory
It would be rash for me to say anything about the joy of paradise, since it is written in Isaiah and in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, ‘No eye has seen and no ear has heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him.’ Why endeavour to express the very thing that is unable to enter into the heart of man?
I would rather say something to arouse in you the desire of experiencing what mortal eyes cannot see. For this desire uplifts the mind from earthly to heavenly things and causes us to become at least partly of heaven, even though we are still earthly and mortal. If the saying is true, ‘Where your treasure is, there is your heart also,’ then if our treasure is in heaven our hearts must be in heaven too. And if our hearts are in heaven and are heavenly, then it is our desire that makes our hearts heavenly. So let us try in our meditation to be lifted up to infinite matters from the small, and to mighty matters from the least.
As heaven exceeds the earth in magnitude and height and beauty, so heavenly goods are doubtless to be preferred to earthly ones. I can say this without hesitation, even though I do not know what heavenly goods are like – for they are beyond all imagining. The two powers of our intellective ability are intellect and will. The intellect is gratified by knowledge of the truth, but the will is gratified by the possession of satisfaction, and there is nothing more pleasing in this life.
‘Our knowledge is imperfect and our prophesying is imperfect.’ We know as children, we speak as children, because we always see only ‘a dim image in a mirror:’ for the body is a hindrance which weighs down the soul and interferes with its understanding. However, because in paradise man will see face to face and know as he is known, ‘all imperfect things will pass away,’ and this immense desire that we have will be utterly satisfied. The all-embracing essence which is the first Truth will reveal himself to our intelligence, and at last that saying will be fulfilled, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’
At present our intellect is disturbed by the coming and going of many fantasies. It is like a child in the market place, captivated now by this, now by that. It is not still, it does not see God, and all its busyness and work is in vain.
No matter how innocently and piously we live, it is only in paradise that we will find the home of our hopes and our desires. It was with this home in mind that the prophet said, ‘Glorious things are told of you, O city of God!’ and ‘How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord God of hosts! My soul is longing and yearning for the courts of the Lord,’ and ‘As a deer yearns for running streams, so my soul is longing for you, my King and my God. My soul is thirsting for God, the living God, when shall I see him face to face?’ Then, God will be all things to all people; he will satisfy the desire of every person. God will fill our minds with such delight that the prophet’s saying will be perfectly fulfilled, ‘I shall be satisfied when your glory appears.’ The blessed will hear the sweet praises of God resounding on all sides; again, this is what the prophet says: ‘O happy are those who dwell in your house, forever singing your praise!’ They will also see the heavens and perceive their harmonious wholeness. They will see Christ himself and his blessed Mother and all the saints in glory. Incorruptible, and radiant in their beauty, they will be such a wonder to behold that no one could imagine anything more desirable.
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.