The Pastoral Guide, by Pope St Gregory the Great

 

  The Pastoral Guide, by Pope St Gregory the Great

E Régula pastoráli sancti Gregórii Magni papæ

 

Sit rector discrétus in siléntio, útilis in verbo, ne aut tacénda próferat aut proferénda reticéscat. Nam sicut incáuta locútio in errórem pértrahit, ita indiscrétum siléntium hos qui erudíri póterant, in erróre derelínquit. Sæpe namque rectóres impróvidi humánam amíttere grátiam formidántes, loqui líbere recta pertiméscunt; et iuxta Veritátis vocem, nequáquam iam gregis custódiæ pastórum stúdio, sed mercenariórum vice desérviunt, quia veniénte lupo fúgiunt, dum se sub siléntio abscóndunt.

Hinc namque eos per Prophétam Dóminus íncrepat, dicens: Canes muti non valéntes latráre.

 

The Pastoral Guide, by Pope St Gregory the Great

 

A spiritual guide should be silent when discretion requires and speak when words are of service. Otherwise he may say what he should not or be silent when he should speak. Indiscreet speech may lead men into error and an imprudent silence may leave in error those who could have been taught. Pastors who lack foresight hesitate to say openly what is right because they fear losing the favor of men. As the voice of truth tells us, such leaders are not zealous pastors who protect their flocks, rather they are like mercenaries who flee by taking refuge in silence when the wolf appears. The Lord reproaches them through the prophet: They are dumb dogs that cannot bark.

 

 

The mother of St. Dominic also had a dream about a barking dog in her wom

 

St. Gregory the Great wrote in his Exposition on the Canticle of Canticles: “[H]oly preachers are at times referred to as dogs because their assiduous preaching, like troublesome barking, forces the adversaries to abandon the flock of sheep.” St. Augustine of Hippo, considered a father-figure in the Order due to his monastic rule being one of our founding documents, also wrote famously: “Good watch dogs keep guard and give tongue for the house and master, for the flock and shepherd.”

S. IOSEPH, SPONSI BEATÆ MARIÆ VIRGINIS

 

S. IOSEPH, SPONSI BEATÆ MARIÆ VIRGINIS

 

Ad I & II Vesperas: Hieronymus Casanate

 

Te, Ioseph, célebrent ágmina cælitum,

te cuncti résonent christíanum chori,

qui, clarus méritis, iunctus es ínclitæ

  casto fœdere Vírgini.

 

Almo cum túmidam gérmine cóniugem

admírans, dúbio tángeris ánxius,

afflátu súperi Fláminis ángelus

  concéptum púerum docet.

 

Tu natum Dóminum stringis, ad éxteras

Ægýpti prófugum tu séqueris plagas;

amíssum Sólymis quæris et ínvenis,

  miscens gáudia flétibus.

 

Eléctos réliquos mors pia cónsecrat

palmámque eméritos glória súscipit;

tu vivens, súperis par, frúeris Deo,

  mira sorte beátior.

 

Nobis, summa Trias, parce precántibus;

da Ioseph méritis sídera scándere,

ut tandem líceat nos tibi pérpetim

  gratum prómere cánticum. Amen.

 

O Joseph, the heavenly hosts celebrate you, and all the choirs of Christendom resound the praise, you who with merits bright are joined in a chaste bound with the glorious Virgin. When you were amazed at your wife pregnant with her loving child, anxiously you were seized by doubt, an angel told you that the child was conceived by the breath of the heavenly Spirit.  You took the newborn Lord that you might follow him on the journey to the far-off land of Egypt; you searched for and found him, when he was lost in Jerusalem, your joy mingled with weeping.  A holy death consecrates other chosen men and glory and palms of victory greet the deserving; but you living had a more blessed and wondrous lot, you were here with God like those in heaven. Highest Trinity, grant to us by the merits of Joseph to reach the stars that at last we may sing forever to you a canticle of thanks. Amen.

 

 

Ad Officium lectionis: Hieronymus Casanate

 

Iste, quem læti cólimus, fidéles,

cuius excélsos cánimus triúmphos,

hac die Ioseph méruit perénnis

  gáudia vitæ.

 

O nimis felix, nimis o beátus,

cuius extrémam vígiles ad horam

Christus et Virgo simul astitérunt

  ore seréno.

 

Iustus insígnis, láqueo solútus

carnis, ad sedes plácido sopóre

migrat ætérnas, rutilísque cingit

  témpora sertis.

 

Ergo regnántem flagitémus omnes,

adsit ut nobis, veniámque nostris

óbtinens culpis, tríbuat supérnæ

  múnera pacis.

 

Sint tibi plausus, tibi sint honóres,

trine qui regnas Deus, et corónas

áureas servo tríbuis fidéli

  omne per ævum. Amen.

 

Joseph, whom we, the faithful, joyfully praise for his great triumphs, today was worthy of the joys of eternal life. O how happy, O how blessed, was he who at his last hour had Christ and the Virgin with peaceful countenance standing by and keeping watch. Great in justice, freed from the snare of the body, calmly and in repose he departs this world for his heavenly home, crowned with brilliant garlands. Therefore let us all implore him now ruling above that he be with us, obtain pardon for our sins, and grant us the gifts of heavenly peace. To you be praise, to you honors, O Triune God, who rules and grants a golden crown to your faithful servant, throughout the ages. Amen.

 

Ad Laudes matutinas: Hieronymus Casanate

 

 Caelitum Joseph decus, atque nostrae

certa spes vitæ columénque mundi,

quas tibi læti cánimus, benígnus

  súscipe laudes.

 

Te, satum David, státuit Creátor

Vírginis sponsum, voluítque Verbi

te patrem dici, dedit et minístrum

  esse salútis.

 

Tu Redemptórem stábulo iacéntem,

quem chorus vatum cécinit futúrum,

áspicis gaudens, sociúsque matris

  primus adóras.

 

Rex Deus regum, dominátor orbis,

cuius ad nutum tremit inferórum

turba, cui pronus famulátur æther,

  se tibi subdit.

 

Laus sit excélsæ Tríadi perénnis,

quæ, tibi insígnes tríbuens honóres,

det tuis nobis méritis beátæ

  gáudia vitæ. Amen.

 

O Joseph, the honor of those in heaven and our sure hope of life and the support of the world, kindly receive  the praises we sing joyfully sing to you. The Creator appointed you, offspring of David, as husband of the Virgin, and willed that you be called the father of the Word and made you a minister of salvation. You rejoicing looked upon the Redeemer, whom the choir of prophets sang as the one to come, laid in the stable, and with his Mother first adored. God, the King of kings, Ruler of the world, at whose word the crowd of hell trembles, whom heaven humbly serves, submits himself to you. Eternal praise be to the most high Trinity, that gives to you great honors and give to us through your merits the joys of a blessed life. Amen.

St Cyril of Alexandria’s Homiletic Commentary on Luke 20:27-38 IGNORANCE is constantly, so to speak, accompanied by rashness, and leads men on to attach great importance to their wretched fancies; and thus, those who are the victims of this malady entertain a great idea of themselves, and imagine themselves possessed of such knowledge as no man can gainsay. For they forget, as it seems, Solomon, who says, “Be not wise in your own eyes,” that is, according to your own single judgment: and again, that “wisdom not put to the proof goes astray.” For we do not necessarily possess true opinions upon every individual doctrine that we hold, but often perhaps abandoning the right path, we err, and fall into that which is not fitting. But I think it right, that exercising an impartial and unprejudiced judgment, and not rendered rash by passion, we should love the truth, and eagerly pursue it. But the foolish Sadducees had no great regard for such considerations. They were a sect of the Jews, and what was the nature of the opinion which they entertained concerning the resurrection of the dead, Luke has explained to us in the Acts of the Apostles, thus writing, “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess all.” They draw near therefore to Christ our common Savior, Who is the Life and Resurrection, and endeavor to disprove the resurrection: and being men contemptuous and unbelieving, they invent a story replete with ignorance, and by a string of frigid suppositions wickedly endeavor violently to shake into nothingness the hope of the whole world. For we affirm, that the hope of the whole world is the resurrection from the dead, of whom Christ was the first-born and first-fruits: and therefore the wise Paul also, making our resurrection to depend upon His, says, “If the dead rise not, neither did Christ rise:” and again adds thereto, as if urging the converse thought to its conclusion, “But if Christ rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection from the dead?” And those who said this were the Sadducees, of whom we are now speaking. But let us examine, if you will, this senseless fiction of their framing. They say then that there were seven brethren, who successively became the husbands of one wife, according to the requirements of the law of Moses; and she died without children: at the resurrection therefore whose wife will she be? The enquiry however was but a senseless one, nor did the question at all accord with the inspired Scriptures: and the answer of our Savior amply suffices to prove the folly of their narrative, and make us reject both their fiction, and the idea upon which it was founded. Still I think it right to convict them plainly of foolishly resisting the inspired Scriptures, and to show that they completely mistook the sense of what the sacred writings teach. For come and let us see what the company of the holy prophets has spoken to us upon this point, and what are the declarations which the Lord of hosts has made by their means. He said therefore of those that sleep, “I will deliver them from the hand of the grave; I will redeem them from death: Where is your condemnation, O death? O grave, where is your sting?” Now what is meant by the condemnation of death, and by its sting also, the blessed Paul has taught us, saying, “But the sting of death is sin: and the strength of sin is the law.” For he compares death to a scorpion, the sting of which is sin: for by its poison it slays the soul. And the law, he says, was the strength of sin: for so he himself again elsewhere protests, saying, “I had not known sin but by the law:” “for where there is no law, there is no transgression of the law.” For this reason Christ has removed those who believe in Him from the jurisdiction of the law that condemns: and has also abolished the sting of death, even sin: and sin being taken away, death, as a necessary consequence, departed with it; for it was from it, and because of it, that death came into the world. As God therefore gives the promise, “I will deliver them from the hand of the grave, and from death I will redeem them;” so the blessed prophets also accord with the decrees from on high: for they speak to us, “not of their own heart, nor of the will of man, but from the mouth of God,” as it is written; inasmuch as it is the Holy Spirit which speaking within them declares upon every matter, what is the sentence of God, and His almighty and unalterable will. The prophet Isaiah therefore has said to us, “Your dead men shall arise: and those in the graves shall be raised; and they who are in the earth shall rejoice: for the dew from You is healing to them.” And by the dew I imagine he means the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and that influence which abolishes death, as being that of God and of life.

Teresan Prayer

 

Let us attempt at this point to name the major methods and activities of meditative prayer that St. Teresa discusses for our instruction. First on our list is vocal prayer. This is an important subject. Teresa clearly sees that vocal prayer can sustain any kind of meditative effort. And in this she joins company with the monastic centuries that based prayer on biblical texts, as Teresa does on the Lord s Prayer in the Way of Perfection. The first lesson in prayer for Teresa is learning to say vocal prayers well with attention, and identifying with their sentiments. We shall see that the rediscovery of monastic lectio would reinstate the biblical word as the basis of Christian meditation. Somehow Teresa remains in touch with that basic methodology. She is clear that vocal prayer serves not only meditation but contemplation as well: I know that there are many persons who while praying vocally...are raised by God to sublime contemplation . It's because of this that I insist so much, daughters, upon your reciting vocal prayer well (Way, 30, 7; cf. Way, 24, passim).

Reading.

 

Second, we list reading. Apart from the practice of following a book with meditation outlines, Teresa also treats of praying with a book for the whole time of prayer. She asserts that it is a great help to take a good book written in the vernacular in order to recollect one s thoughts and pray well vocally (Way, 26, 10). But she goes even further, reaffirming again the whole monastic tradition of prayer: I have always been fond of the words of the Gospels and found more recollection in them than in very cleverly written books (Way, 21, 3).[5]

It is the Bible that provides the best book for private prayer. The best way to feed prayer is to ponder the words of Scripture. Carmelites (in fact, all Christians) make a great mistake in trying to practice the presence of God without sustaining it by the word of God. We need to learn to pray over God s word. Let s not miss the relation between Teresa's teaching on vocal prayer and her thoughts on praying over a book. St. Teresa uses the words of Scripture for vocal prayer. The Our Father is given as one example, not to limit the use of other passages. Any sentence or phrase or word of scripture, repeated over and over or recited very carefully, is vocal prayer; and that word or vocal prayer is drawn from her favorite book, the Gospels. In short, Teresa's teachings on vocal prayer and on the use of the Gospels come together in the practice of praying over the Scriptures. This makes for a most substantial prayer life.

Images.

 

The recollected use of sacred images comes next on our list of prayer methods. Teresa encourages us to look at an image or painting of this Lord that is to our liking so as to speak often to Him (Way, 26, 9). Here we have a helpful method for practicing the presence of God. The use of good images and icons (which the Orthodox venerate so devoutly) is an excellent practice. Fortified by the word of Scripture and the image of Christ we are ready to pray. Our senses must learn to serve our prayer rather than distract from it. In her Life (ch. 9) we see how images were especially helpful to Teresa because of her difficulty in picturing what she had never seen. The principle, however, is very broad. Sacred images are good for people with poor imaginations or good imaginations. But images must have an appeal to the person before they can be of inspirational value; some people do not profit from images, or do not need them. Sacred images can most certainly serve individual prayer, just as they serve liturgical prayer in our churches.

Imaginative representations must be named on our list. I strove to picture Christ within me, and it did me greater good in my opinion to picture Him in those scenes where I saw Him more alone (Life, 9, 4). A holy imagination enables us to really identify with scriptural scenes, as Teresa did. A playful but disciplined imagination is essential to the classical prayer tradition. Interior images can serve prayer as effectively as exterior ones. But images, like discursive reflections, must nourish affection. Images are means, and good ones when they feed the heart and the will. We would do well to allow images and feelings mature expression within us as we encounter them in the Scriptures and in other books and pious exercises that serve our prayer. Images can put us in touch with ourselves as few other things can. Biblical images have special power for this, and we need to trust our own spontaneous images triggered by the biblical images. Images help us to get in touch with feelings; our feelings need to be redeemed, purified, and elevated by the word of God. The prudent and inspired use of our faculties is enhanced and facilitated immensely when we are in touch with our images, memories, and feelings. We certainly have the impression that St. Teresa was in touch with hers. Mature images of nature and grace easily mediate the presence of God.

Reflection, Intuition, and Self-Knowledge.

 

Reflection has already been named as an element of Teresian meditation. We briefly include it here, and associate thinking, understanding, and evaluating with it.

There is a more right-brain kind of knowing called intuition that we must also mention; briefly, it involves dwelling on a biblical text or image with a loving gaze, gently looking at God, rather than studying or working with the analytical mind. The ability to dwell rather than dig is the heart of affective prayer, so characteristically Teresian. Simple intuition breeds the simplicity of love. Teresa explains herself very clearly here; she advises us to stop working so hard, to take a Sabbath, some time off. She tells us not to tire the intellect, but just to speak with and delight in Him and not wear ourselves out in composing syllogisms. Such acts, she assures us, contain a great amount of sustenance (Life, 13, 11). In this sense she leads us to simply look at him who looks at us: I m not asking that you draw out a lot of concepts or make long and subtle reflections with your intellect. I m not asking you to do anything more than look at Him (Way, 26, 3). This looking is intuitive.

While speaking of thinking and intuiting, we ought to include reference to the meditative asceticism of self-knowledge, to which Teresa devotes so many pages. She clearly perceives the importance of walking in self-knowledge all the days of our life (see Castle, 1, 2, 8). Teresa does not advocate self-consciousness, but she most assuredly wants self-awareness; not self-centeredness, but transcendent self-presence (to steal a notion from Father Adrian van Kaam). This is but a matter of humility for Teresa; otherwise we cannot walk in the truth (Castle, 6, 10). We need to understand our own inner powers (see her interest in the natural workings of the imagination in Castle, 4, 1), as well as our own temperament (see what she says about the melancholy person in Foundations, 7). We need to compare the inner darkness (the demonic or shadow self) with the light and brightness of our Lord (see Castle, 1, 2). Humility and self-knowledge are one and the same for Teresa (see Castle, 1, 2). Unless we walk in the radical truth about ourselves we will not know the truth about God either. And unless we walk in truth we are not pleasing to God. With a precision like that of Thomas Aquinas, Teresa perceives that unless we cultivate self-knowledge (which again is humility) we will never really be charitable persons. She writes: I cannot understand how there can be humility without love or love without humility (Way, 16, 2). Mature prayer and self-knowledge enable us to see that truth in charity and charity in the truth must constitute a life program. Charity of any depth at all requires that we know ourselves.

An important point about Teresian self-knowledge is that it is not introspective or centered in the incomplete self; rather it is God- and Christ-centered. From learning to look at God in truth we discover the truth about the self. By gazing at [God s] grandeur, we get in touch with our own lowliness; by looking at His purity, we shall see our own filth; by pondering His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble (Castle, 1, 2, 9). Only in the benevolent presence of the redeeming Lord can we safely descend into the compulsive, wounded, and sinful self. In humility we then find healing, for the Lord is the Master of both the conscious and the unconscious self and can touch the very core of the person, drawing us up into salvation and liberation from all that is contrary to truth and charity. Love of God and love of neighbor both radically depend on authentic self-knowledge. Self-knowledge sees through behavior to its deeper motivation. The genuine desire for such insight leads us to pray to the God of light and to seek out spiritual directors, confessors, and good friends who will tell us the truth about ourselves and keep our prayer life in the light (see Life, 13, last part).

Thus self-knowledge is an integral dimension of prayer. We cannot know God without knowing the self and we cannot know the self without knowing God. The fallen self cannot acquire authentic self-knowledge by its own unaided powers. Seeing ourselves in the truth is an aspect of liberation from the fallen self. Again, we need to roam the mansions of self-knowledge all the days of our prayerful lives. Teresian prayer is self-knowing in the light of Christ.

Briefly we should also mention existential reflection, i.e., prayerful reflection on life-situations so that we can see and cope with them in the light and love of God. We learn to take our more pronounced states of mind to prayer with us, whether they be due to external or internal causes. It is not that we are encouraging problem-solving at prayer; rather, we learn from Teresa how to draw the presence of Christ into our states of mind and heart. We go to prayer as we are. If you are experiencing trials or are sad, behold Him on the way to the garden . He will look at you with those eyes so beautiful and compassionate, filled with tears; He will forget His sorrows so as to console you in yours (Way, 26, 6).

Affective Prayer and Resolutions.

 

Affective activity is characteristic of Teresian meditation, as we have seen. In the Teresian system, affective prayer is meditation, and all meditation feeds affectivity. Teresa wants the will to desire God, to resolve to serve him, to move toward union with him. Together with ready- made prayers, she wants us to learn to freely express ourselves with words that come from our own heart (Way, 26, 6). Stronger and stronger becomes Teresa's emphasis on affective prayer as she outlines the spiritual journey. For those in the first three dwelling-places she writes: They would be right if they engaged for a while in making acts of love, praising God, rejoicing in His goodness, that He is who He is, and in desiring His honor and glory. These acts are great awakeners of the will and are more important than just following one s usual meditation (see Castle, 4, 1, 6).

Teresa wants us to move progressively toward affective simplicity because it best prepares for contemplation. (And since in the Interior Castle we find no warning about the passive night of the senses, it may be that Teresian simple affectivity cuts through into initial contemplation without the great adjustment treated by St. John of the Cross.) Teresian affectivity is one of the greatest strengths of her doctrine on meditation.

Let us not neglect resolutions as we construct our list of Teresian methods. Resolutions are very clearly meditative acts that she highly valued. Though Carmelites sometimes spurn this seemingly more Ignatian emphasis, Teresa herself is a woman of will. She wants a very determined determination to keep on praying all of one s years (see Way, 13). And she wants as strong a resolve to grow and pursue virtue as we can manage. We need to cultivate great desires for God, and a strong will, a will that will not give up prayer for absolutely anything and that will pursue virtue at all costs. Certainly, Teresian prayer does not require a resolution at each prayer session. But we need to realize that resolutions are a dimension of Teresian affectivity that very concretely relate prayer to real life.

Recollection.

 

Last of all we list the prayer of recollection. We refer here to the active prayer of recollection, i.e., recollection or rapport with the inner presence of God due to our own meditative efforts. (Important references include Life, 4, 7; 40, 5 6; Way, 28 29; Castle, 4, 3.) Teresa confesses that until she learned to find the presence of Christ within herself she never knew satisfaction at prayer (see Way, 29, 7). This prayer is called recollection because the soul collects its faculties together and enters within itself to be with its God. And its divine Master comes more quickly to teach it and give it the prayer of quiet than He would through any other method it might use. For centered there within itself it can think about the Passion and represent the Son and offer Him to the Father and not tire the intellect by going to look for Him on Mount Calvary or in the garden or at the pillar (Way, 28, 4). This inward focus is Teresa's favorite orientation for the work of meditation.

So far, then, we have placed Teresian meditation within the larger tradition of monastic prayer, called lectio divina, and have looked at some basic Teresian notions: mental prayer, vocal prayer, and meditation. We noted that meditation in a broad sense is the first category of prayer for Teresa, an active or ascetical stage of prayer just short of contemplation. We have also reviewed the basic characteristics and attitudes underlying Teresian prayer (attentiveness, affectivity, Christ-centeredness, the contemplative orientation of her prayer, the importance of self-knowledge) as well as various Teresian methods of praying (e.g., vocal prayer, meditative reading, the use of sacred images for focusing, the employment of interior images, reflection and intuition, affective prayer, resolutions, and active recollection). Now we are ready to apply all these things to the actual practice of prayer, in the context of the rediscovery of Western monastic lectio divina.

Source: from “Lenten Sermons, Volume I in Opera Omnia, Collected Sermons and Homilies of St. Lawrence of Brindisi.

 

Source: from “Lenten Sermons, Volume I in Opera Omnia, Collected Sermons and Homilies of St. Lawrence of Brindisi.” Translated from the Latin by Vernon Wagner, O.F.M.Cap.,

 

When you fast do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They put on long faces, etc.

 

Today, Christ, the divine artist, molds and fashions a spiritual man, a theological man, the inner self, as Paul calls him. Physical man consists of body and soul. Metaphysical man is defined by genus and species. Christian man is composed of nature and grace. In his treatise on man today, Christ speaks not as a physical or metaphysical philosopher, but as a theologian and moral philosopher. A man is born natural and physical. In baptism he becomes supernatural and theological.

 

Moses spoke of the formation of the natural and physical man when he wrote that man is made up of body and soul, flesh and spirit, just as this world is also composed of heaven and earth, the corporeal and spiritual, visible and invisible substances and natures: The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. God formed his body and breathed into him his soul, and so man consists of body and soul. Without a body man would be an angel. Without a rational soul, he would be a brute animal.

 

Christ, the creator of this spiritual and mystic world which we call the Church, also requires both corporeal and spiritual virtues for the formation of this spiritual and theological man. The corporeal virtue is fasting. The spiritual virtues are humility: so that you may not appear to be fasting; faith: except to your Father who is hidden; hope: and your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you; love: where your treasure is, there will your heart be; nobility of spirit: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… but store up treasure in heaven; spiritual strength and purity of conscience: wash your face; the spiritual unction of the Holy Spirit: anoint your head….

 

For this reason, the Lord compared the Church to a vineyard rather than to that paradise where our first parents were placed. In paradise there was no labor or sweat required to bear the day’s burden and the heat. There was also no need, then, to tame the flesh or mortify the body, because the flesh was obedient to the spirit like a humble handmaid to her mistress, like Hagar to Sarah before she conceived Ishmael. But now the flesh is in revolt, like Hagar after she had conceived Ishmael. She no longer wanted to obey her mistress and instead despised her and coveted Sarah’s place as mistress. Sarah, consequently, began to abuse her to maintain her own status.

 

Man then was like a well ordered city, a well trained army. He was a perfectly tuned musical instrument; he was like the finest clock. But sin threw everything into disarray. In paradise man held the middle ground between the animals and the angels, like the dawn between the night and the day; like the sky with its perfectly ordered movements between earth’s elements and the empyrean. All man’s actions had a happy outcome, whether they were the natural activities of the body or the more angelic and divine activities of the spirit. Man might truly have been called an angel in the flesh. He was like the finest knight, second to none in equestrian skills, mounted on a superbly trained horse obedient to the slightest tug of bridle and bit, like Alexander the Great astride his celebrated steed, Bucephalus.

 

But sin threw everything into confusion. Man when he prospers forfeits intelligence. He is compared to senseless beasts and becomes like them, transformed into a beast like King Nebuchadnezzar. The natural person does not accept what pertains to the spirit of God. Then human nature was like blessed soil which yielded its fruits for man without any labor on his part. Now the land is cursed because of sin. It sprouts forth thorns and thistles and only with great effort and sweat does it yield the necessities of life. The vine needs careful pruning now, and needs to have a trench dug around it that is filled with fertilizer in due season, or it will not bear fruit.

 

Today the Lord asks us to be prudent people, as Paul says, who do not continue in ignorance but try to understand what is the will of the Lord, to discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. He wants to see us endowed with keen and right judgment, with neither a perverted nor inverted sense of values, lest we become like those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter. The Lord seeks a people undefiled by vices, but endowed and adorned with virtues. Lives there such a man who does not want others to think and speak well of him, who is not upset by some evil mark or remark levied against him? Even criminals detained in prison constantly profess their innocence and want others to concur in their opinion. They know that once their innocence is discounted, they have nothing to look forward to except continued incarceration or the galley of a slave ship. God desires us to be truly rich, truly noble, endowed with a lofty spirit and generous heart so that we will spurn the worthless goods of earth and strive only for those of heaven.

St. Gertrude: The Herald of Divine Love: Chapter 28. The Cloister of the Lord's Body

 

St. Gertrude: The Herald of Divine Love: Chapter 28. The Cloister of the Lord's Body

 

At Vespers, while they were singing "Vidi aquam egredientem".  the Lord said to her: "Behold my heart; now it will be your temple. And now look among the other parts of my body and choose for yourself other places, in which you can lead a monastic life, because from now on my body will be your cloister. To this she said: "Lord, I do not know how to seek further or how to choose, because I find such sweet plenty in your sweetest heart, which you deign to call my temple, that apart from it I am unable to find any rest or refreshment, both of which are necessary in a cloister. " Then the Lord said: "If it pleases you, you may find both these things in my heart; for you have heard about others who, like Dominic," never left the temple, eating and even sleeping there. Do choose, however, some other places which you think it would be expedient to have in your cloister. '

 

Then, at the Lord's bidding, she chose the Lord's feet for a hall or ambulatory; his hands for workshop; his mouth for parlor and chapter house; his eyes for library where she might read; and his ears for confessional. Then the Lord taught her that she should always go up to it after each fall, as though ascending the five steps of humiliation, which are to be remembered by these five expressions: "I, a wretch, a sinner, a beggar, evil, unworthy, come to you as to the overflowing abyss of mercy, to be washed from every stain and to be cleansed from every sin. Amen."

 

Mozarabic Hymns 2:  Terce, Sext, None in Lent: Prudentius

 

 

 Feria secunda: Ad tertiam in Quadragesima

 

In the Durham Hymnal this hymn is used at Compline. The collectar specifies it for the 3^rd and 4^th Saturdays and the 3^rd Sunday of Lent. It is taken from Prudentius, Cathemerinon  VII and the Anglo-Saxon version does not have the third stanza, nor the same doxology.

 

O Nazarene, lux Bethlehem, Verbum Patris.

Quem partus alvi Virginalis protulit,

Adesto castis, Christe, parsimoniis,

Festumque nostrum rex serenus adspice,

Jejuniorum dum litamus victimam.

 

 Nil hoc profecto purius mysterio,

Quo fibra cordis expiatur vividi,

Intemperata quo domantur viscera,

Arvina putrem ne resudans crapulam

Obstrangulatae mentis ingenium premat.

 

 Hinc subjugatur luxus, et turpis gula,

Vini atque somni degener socordia,

Libido sordens, inverecundus lepos,

Variaeque pestes languidorum sensuum

Parcam subactae disciplinam sentiunt.

 

 Nam si licenter diffluens potu et cibo,

Jejuna rite membra non coerceant:

Sequitur, frequenti marcida oblectamine,

Scintilla mentis ut tepescat nobilis,

Animusque pigris stertat ut praecordiis.

   Amen. Honor, potestas, etc.

 

 

O man of Nazareth. Light of Bethlehem, the Word of the Father, whom the birth of a virginal womb brought forth, assist us, O Christ, in this season of chaste abstinence and a peaceful king watch over our observance, while we offer up the sacrifice of fasting. Nothing is more cleansing than carrying out this mystery, by which the very fiber of the living heart is cleansed, through which the intemperance within us is conquered, lest unbridled fat and sordid drunkenness be not restrained and oppress the natural capacity of a strangled  mind.  In this way luxury and base gluttony are brought low, degenerate sloth of wine and sleep, filthy lust and foolish wit and the various plagues of sick feelings are subjected and made to feel discipline of restraint. For if drink and food flow freely, the  body is not coerced with proper fasting, it follows that, exhausted by continual amusement, the noble spark of the mind grows tepid and the soul sleeps from the laziness of the  inmost heart. 

 

 

 Feria secunda: Ad sextam in Quadragesima

  

Referre prisci stemma nunc jejunii

Libet, fideli proditum volumine,

Ut diruendae Civitatis incolis

Fulmen benigni mansuefactum Patris

Pie repressis ignibus pepercerit.

 

 

 Gens insolenti praepotens jactantia

Pollebat olim, quam fluentem nequiter

Corrupta vulgo solverat lascivia:

Et inde bruto contumax fastidio,

Cultum superni negligebat Numinis.

 

 Offensa tandem jugis indulgentiae

Censura, justis excitatur motibus,

Dextram perarmat rhomphaeali incendio;

Nimbos crepantes et fragosos turbines

Vibrans, tonantum nube flammarum quatit.

 

 Sed poenitendi dum datur diecula,

Si forte vellent improbam libidinem,

Veteresque nugas, condomare ac frangere,

Suspendit ictum terror exorabilis,

Paulumque dicta substitit sententia.

   Honor, potestas, etc

 

I would now tell the ancient origin of the fast, passed down in that trustworthy book, how the good of the Father softening his thunderbolt, repressing his fire by love, did not attack the inhabitants of a city that deserved to be destroyed. Once a powerful people flourished with insolent pride, in which, opulent and dissolute, their corrupted lasciviousness had caused general dissipation, and so, obstinate in foolish disdain, they disregarded the worship of the heavenly God. After a long indulgence, the divine justice so offended is indignant and armed his hand with a sword of fire. Dark clouds burst out with a crash; Livid and thunderous fires shake the vault of heaven on the head of the guilty. But, they are given a time to repent; He is still free to censure  the course of their shameful debaucheries; They may, if they will, arrest the disorders in which they have grown old; The merciful vengeance deigns to suspend its blows; and for a brief space the sentence already issued was suspended.

 

 

Feria secunda:  Ad nonam in Quadragesima

  

Sed cur vetustae gentis exemplum loquor?

Pridem caducis cum gravatus artubus

Jesus, dicato corde jejunaverit;

Praenuncupatus ore qui prophetico.

Emmanuel est, sive nobiscum Deus?

 

Qui corpus istud molle naturaliter,

Captumque laxo sub voluptatum jugo,

Virtutis arcta lege fecit liberum,

Emancipator servientis plasmatis,

Regnantis ante victor et cupidinis.

 

Inhospitali namque secretus loco,

Quinis diebus octies labentibus,

Nullam ciborum vendicavit gratiam,

Firmans salubri, scilicet, jejunio

Vas appetendis imbecillum gaudiis.

   Honor, potestas. Etc.

 

But what does the example of an ancient people tells us? When Jesus himself, long since  weighted down with a perishable body, fasted with a dedicated heart; he who was long before named by the mouth of  prophecy ‘Emmanuel’, or, ‘God with us’. He, who had a weak body according to nature and yet loosened  from the captivity of the yoke of pleasure,  made free by the strong law of virtue, deliverer of created slaves, victor over the concupiscence which previously ruled them.For hidden in an inhospitable place, in the course of five times eight days, he did not demand the grace of any food, strengthening with a healthy fast the weak vessel for the joys sought.