Monday 21 February 2022
Monday of week 7 in Ordinary Time
or Saint Peter Damian, Bishop, Doctor
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Monday of week 7 in Ordinary Time
A sermon on Ecclesiastes by St Gregory of Nyssa
Christ is our head, and the wise man keeps his eyes upon him
We shall be blessed with clear vision if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, for he, as Paul teaches, is our head, and there is in him no shadow of evil. Saint Paul himself and all who have reached the same heights of sanctity had their eyes fixed on Christ, and so have all who live and move and have their being in him.
As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light, so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has his eyes on Christ. The man who keeps his eyes upon the head and origin of the whole universe has them on virtue in all its perfection; he has them on truth, on justice, on immortality and on everything else that is good, for Christ is goodness itself.
The wise man, then, turns his eyes towards the One who is his head, but the fool gropes in darkness. No one who puts his lamp under a bed instead of on a lamp-stand will receive any light from it. People are often considered blind and useless when they make the supreme Good their aim and give themselves up to the contemplation of God, but Paul made a boast of this and proclaimed himself a fool for Christ’s sake. The reason he said, We are fools for Christ’s sake was that his mind was free from all earthly preoccupations. It was as though he said, “We are blind to the life here below because our eyes are raised towards the One who is our head.”
And so, without board or lodging, he travelled from place to place, destitute, naked, exhausted by hunger and thirst. When men saw him in captivity, flogged, shipwrecked, led about in chains, they could scarcely help thinking him a pitiable sight. Nevertheless, even while he suffered all this at the hands of men, he always looked towards the One who is his head and he asked: What can separate us from the love of Christ, which is in Jesus? Can affliction or distress? Can persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger or death? In other words, “What can force me to take my eyes from him who is my head and to turn them towards things that are contemptible?”
He bids us follow his example: Seek the things that are above, he says, which is only another way of saying: “Keep your eyes on Christ.”
________
Other choices for today:
Saint Peter Damian, Bishop, Doctor
St Peter Damian (standing, on the far right) with Saints Augustine, Anne and Elizabeth, painting (1481) by Ercole de' Roberti (1451-1496).
From a letter by Saint Peter Damian, bishop
Let us rejoice in the joy that follows sadness
You asked me to write you some words of consolation, my brother. Embittered by so many tribulations, you are seeking some comfort for your soul. You asked me to offer you some soothing suggestions.
But there is no need for me to write. Consolation is already within your reach, if your good sense has not been dulled. My son, come to the service of God. Stand in justice and fear. Prepare your soul; it is about to be tested. These words of Scripture show that you are a son of God and, as such, should take possession of your inheritance. What could be clearer than this exhortation?
Where there is justice as well as fear, adversity will surely test the spirit. But it is not the torment of a slave. Rather it is the discipline of a child by its parent.
Even in the midst of his many sufferings, the holy man Job could say: Whip me, crush me, cut me in slices! And he would always add: This at least would bring me relief, yet my persecutor does not spare me.
But for God’s chosen ones there is great comfort; the torment lasts but a short time. Then God bends down, cradles the fallen figure, whispers words of consolation. With hope in his heart, man picks himself up and walks again towards the glory of happiness in heaven.
Craftsmen exemplify this same practice. By hammering gold, the smith beats down the dross. The sculptor files metal to reveal a shining vein underneath. The potter’s furnace puts vessels to the test. And the fire of suffering tests the mettle of just men. The apostle James echoes this thought: Think it a great joy, dear brothers and sisters, when you stumble onto the many kinds of trials and tribulations.
When men suffer pain for the evil they have perpetrated in life, they should take some reassurance. They also know that for their good deeds undying rewards await them in the life to come.
Therefore, my brother, scorned as you are by men, lashed as it were by God, do not despair. Do not be depressed. Do not let your weakness make you impatient. Instead, let the serenity of your spirit shine through your face. Let the joy of your mind burst forth. Let words of thanks break from your lips.
The way that God deals with men can only be praised. He lashes them in this life to shield them from the eternal lash in the next. He pins people down now; at a later time he will raise them up. He cuts them before healing; he throws them down to raise them anew.
The Scriptures reassure us: let your understanding strengthen your patience. In serenity look forward to the joy that follows sadness. Hope leads you to that joy and love enkindles your zeal. The well-prepared mind forgets the suffering inflicted from without and glides eagerly to what it has contemplated within itself.
________
In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Robert Southwell, Martyr
From the frontispiece of "St Peter's Complaint", by Robert Southwell, published in 1608.
From a letter written by St Robert Southwell to St Philip Howard in the Tower of London
The cause is God's, the conflict short, the reward eternal
Martyrdom ever confers the highest honour on any man; to you it will bring a double palm, for you will be able to say with the Psalmist, Praestitisti decori meo virtutem, since you will have crowned nobility with the glory of the Cross of Christ. If you have sinned, no sacrament more powerful than such a death, no satisfaction more valid; if you are well-deserving (which indeed I think), no crown more excellent, no laurel more glorious than martyrdom. Let, therefore, neither passion, nor fiction, nor sword, nor the glory of splendid attire, nor bribes, nor entreaties, nor any other violence separate you from the charity of Christ. You are born that you might be of God; that you live, is from God, you encounter this death for God; that death will confirm the vacillating, will render the strong yet stronger still.
Friends applaud, strangers stand astonished, the adversaries are confounded, whilst you beget for yourself in both orbs an eternal name. A happy beginning gains a more happy conclusion for him whom hitherto neither a long imprisonment nor the sentence of death terrifies, nor the hope of pardon nor deceitful promises softens. The cause is God’s, the conflict short, the reward eternal.
Lastly, to treat of the affairs of your soul. I would not that you afflict yourself too much by fasting, prayers, and penitential works, in order that you may be the stronger for the last combat. Your desire of confessing (the means being now precluded), and the contrition of a humble heart, expressed by shedding your blood in this cause, will be as full a remission of sins and of all punishment due for them as in baptism – so great is the prerogative of martyrdom. I desire you the happiest issue of the conflict begun, and I hope, by the help of God, to see each other hereafter in glory. Farewell.
Copyright © 1996-2022 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.