Daily Reflections

Job 3:24-26; 6:13

My sighs have become my food,
and my tears pour forth like flowing streams;
whatever I fear happens,
whatever I dread befalls me.
– and trouble comes, O LORD.

I am a man without help, and aid is beyond my reach.
– And trouble comes, O LORD.

Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Pentecost Tuesday (Traditional)

“We have left everything and followed You.” ( Mark 10:28-31) How often we feel that we must remind God of the sacrifices we have made. How easily we worry that He will forget we depend on Him! Sirach ( Ecclesiasticus) assures us that the LORD will repay sevenfold, yet Christ promises even more: the hundredfold, whereby we become heirs to Eternal Life. Why do persecutions make the list of blessings? “A virtuous man’s sacrifice is acceptable, its memorial will not be forgotten.” (Eccl 35:9) To be completely happy, we must become completely like Jesus. To be completely like Jesus, we must share in His Cross.

PENTECOST/WHIT TUESDAY

Preview

The titular church of Saint Anastasia, once the Court church during the Byzantine period, is chosen for today’s station, instead of the Basilica of Saint Paul, as the latter is too far out for a procession at this season of the year when the weather is too warm. During the Octave of Pentecost the Church celebrates more especially the glories of the grace of the Holy Ghost and His secret work of sanctification in the Mystical Body of Christ. Thus today she repeats in the verse for the Communion the words Our LORD: “The Spirit Who proceedeth from the Father, He shall Glorify Me,” and this glorification consist chiefly in our sanctification and in the growth of the Kingdom of God in our souls. (Today’s Gospel Reading: The Good Shepherd: John 10: 1-10)

From the Confessions of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Lib 10, 1, 1-2, 2;5, 7 CSEL 33, 226-227, 230-231)

Whoever I may be, LORD, I lie exposed to Your Scrutiny

LORD, You know me. Let me know You. Let me come to know You even as I am known. You are the strength of my soul; enter it and make it a place suitable for Your dwelling, a possession without spot or blemish. This is my Hope and the reason I speak. In this Hope I rejoice, when I rejoice rightly. As for the other things of this life, the less they deserve tears, the more likely will they be lamented; and the more they deserve tears, the less likely will men sorrow for them. For behold, You have loved the Truth, because the one who does what is true enters into the Light. I wish to do this Truth before You alone by praising You, and before a multitude of witnesses by writing of You.

O LORD, the depths of a man’s conscience lie exposed before Your eyes. Could anything remain hidden in me, even though I did not want to confess it to You? In that case I would only be hiding You from myself, not myself from You. But now my sighs are sufficient evidence that I am displeased with myself; that You are my light and the Source of my Joy; that You are loved and desired. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself; I have renounced myself and chosen You, recognizing that I can please neither You nor myself unless You enable me to do so.

Whoever I may be, LORD, I lie exposed to Your scrutiny. I have already told of the profit I gain when I confess to You. And I do not make my confession with bodily words, bodily speech, but with the words of my soul and the cry of my mind which You hear and understand. When I am wicked, my confession to You is an expression of displeasure with myself. But when I do good, it consists in not attributing this goodness to myself. For You, O LORD, bless the just man, but first You justify the wicked. And so I make my confession before You in silence, and yet not in silence. My voice is silent but my heart cries out.

You, O LORD, are my Judge. For though no one knows a man’s innermost self except the man’s own spirit within him, yet there is something in a man which even his own spirit does not know. But You know all of him, for You have made him. As for me, I despise myself in Your sight, knowing that I am but dust and ashes; yet I know something of You that I do not know of myself.

True, we see now indistinctly as in a mirror, but not yet face to face. Therefore so long as I am in exile from You, I am more present to myself than to You. Yet I do know that You cannot be overcome, while I am uncertain which temptations I can resist and which I cannot. Nevertheless, I have Hope, because You are faithful and do not allow us to be tempted beyond our endurance, but along with the temptation You give us the means to withstand it.

I will confess, therefore, what I know of myself, and also what I do not know. The knowledge that I have of myself, I possess because You have enlightened me; while the knowledge of myself that I do not yet possess will not be mine until my darkness shall be made as the noonday sun before Your face.

How to Gain the Hundredfold

“Trust witnesses who are willing to sacrifice their lives” (Pascal). It is a false notion that we can convince someone of a Truth of Faith simply by persuasive argument alone. Yet sometimes, after a conversion, we may think it is that easy. This is an excessive confidence in the power of reason. Believing is never the result simply of reasoning to a conclusion. Faith’s initial flame catches fire when Grace penetrates beyond merely rational understanding and provokes a deep attraction for the mystery of God. A choice to believe must occur. A soul must stand face to face before the Mystery of Jesus Christ, because even in believing not all matters are comprehended. When a person receives the Grace of Faith and responds to it, another form of persuasion has ordinarily been at work.

The entry into Faith takes place most often by the impact of one soul upon another. An encounter with the heroic generosity and deep Faith of a religious person is the most striking testimony to the Truth of the Gospel. The spiritual vibrancy of persons who have intense Faith, their generosity and full attention to the souls around them—these are more convincing arguments for the Truth of Jesus Christ than any intelligent words. Those who give up everything for God have always been the most powerful proof for the Truth of Christ as a personal presence. But there is also a corollary to this. In a time when Christianity does not attract so strongly, must it be that souls giving their lives sacrificially to God are far fewer in number or perhaps simply more isolated, less visible, less able to influence? It is love alone in generous self-giving that consistently draws others to the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Father Donald Haggerty

Father Haggerty, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is currently serving at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. [From Conversion: Spiritual Insights into an Essential Encounter with God.

Psalm 139:1, 2, 7

O LORD, You have probed me and You know me;
– You discern my thoughts from afar.

Where will I go from Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your Presence?
– You discern my thoughts from afar.

“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.”

– Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen