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Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

VERECUNDUS:

“They descended to the depths like lead in the mighty water.” The “depths” are to be understood as carnal living, which tosses them to and fro on waves of sin. It drowns their self-absorbed souls and sends them to the bottom. Gossip, jealousy, depravity, cruelty and envy are the waves of worldly vice.

APHRAHAT:

For you, Sennacherib, are the ax in the hands of him that cuts, and you are the saw in the hands of him that saws, and the rod in the hand of him that wields you for chastisement, and you are the staff for smiting. You are sent against the fickle people, and again you are ordained against the stubborn people, that you may carry away the captivity and take the spoil; and you have made them as the mire of the streets for all people and for all the Gentiles. And when you have done all these things, why are you exalted against him who holds you, and why do you boast against him who saws with you, and why have you reviled the holy city? read more

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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s readings present the mysterious way that God leads us through this life.  It says in the Gospel that Jesus “goes out of the house,” just as the sower goes out into the world to sow.  Jesus, the Word of God goes out from His intimate dwelling – the Trinity – into the world created through Him and by Him.  He is the word He speaks, and when we listen with our hearts He is the seed planted in our soul and the rain that waters it and gives it growth.  This image is so positive and full of hope and life.  He teaches us through parables that we must take care how we listen and receive His words – our heart is the soil in which the seed (the word) is planted and watered.  St. Augustine reminds us that our hearts are all at different times and in different ways these different types of soil.  Some days our hearts are the rocky soil – God’s Word bounces off and is scorched in the heat.  Some days our hearts are shallow soil – we listen gladly to the word but don’t ponder it  so it dies.  Some days our hearts are good, but we have surrounded our lives with anxieties and worldly pursuits and experience a kind of suffocation – the little plant of God’s life is suffocating in our hearts.  Perhaps this third situation is the one we have to be careful of most as we try to be in the world and not of the world.  We will never be fully at home before heaven, so if we try to settle here permanently we will lose our sense of freedom and life. read more

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Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The core of the Christian struggle is for peace.  We are certainly called to bring about a just society, but only because it makes for peace.  If we decide to use methods or measures to bring about so-called justice at the expense of peace, will we ever truly have peace?  Peace is worth fighting for, but the techniques we employ must come from hearts that are fundamentally decided on peace.  In today’s Gospel, the Lord gives us an interesting teaching about conflict.  He doesn’t tell us to avoid the wolves altogether, but to be aware of them and to have the inner attitude of sheep around them.  When persecution becomes fierce, however, we should in fact flee – not just to live another day, but to bring the Gospel elsewhere.   This is part of the reason the Gospel spread so quickly at the beginning: when and where it was poorly received, time was not wasted insisting or fighting. read more