Posts

Posted on

Monday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Jerome:

[The Greeks] speak of trespass as the first step toward sin. It is when a secret thought steals in, and, though we offer a measure of collusion, it does not yet drive us on to ruin.… But sin is something else. It is when the collusion is actually completed and reaches its goal.

Chrysostom:

Paul encourages them by including himself with them. “Among these,” he says, “we all once lived.” All are included. It is not possible to say that anyone is exempted.

Ambrosiaster:

These are the true riches of God’s mercy, that even when we did not seek it mercy was made known through his own initiative.… This is God’s love to us, that having made us he did not want us to perish. His reason for making us was that he might love what he had made, seeing that no one hates his own workmanship. read more

Posted on

Saturday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

MARIUS VICTORINUS:

Let us understand that we arrive at the full mystery of God by two routes: We ourselves by rational insight may come to understand and discern something of the knowledge of divine things. But when there is a certain divine self-disclosure God himself reveals his divinity to us. Some may directly perceive by this revelation something remarkable, majestic and close to truth.… But when we receive wisdom we apprehend what is divine both through our own rational insight and through God’s own Spirit. When we come to know what is true in the way this text intends, both these ways of knowing correspond. read more

Posted on

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

AMBROSE:

God at times opens the heart through trials. Then the heart becomes so vast that, like the sands of the sea, it cannot be measured. Listen to holy Solomon, who speaks to us of this openness: “Therefore I prayed, and in me prudence was increased. I implored, and the Spirit of wisdom came to me.” So as to receive wisdom from God, he did not ask for riches or noble descendants or power, but he asked for wisdom. And he obtained everything that he did not ask for. For this reason Scripture says that the vastness of his heart was so great that, like the sand of the sea, it could not be measured. So that you would understand this greatness, he consciously says of himself, “Write it in the vastness of your heart.” Therefore, one who has wisdom should not keep it hidden, not even for an instant, but should celebrate it in public. He should proclaim everywhere, with authority, what prudence inspires in him. read more