Daily Reflections

1 Kings 18:21; Matthew 6:24

Elijah approached the people and said:
How long will you straddle the issue by advocating two different opinions?
– If the LORD is God, follow Him.

No one can serve two masters;
you cannot serve God and money.
– If the LORD is God, follow Him.

Monday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Commemoration of St. Alexius, Confessor (Traditional)

We want to be worthy of Jesus Christ. This entails taking up our cross and suffering whatever life throws at us. “It is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword.” (Mt 10:34-11:1) Even if everything is taken from us—even if our enemies turn out to be those of our own household—the only life worth having is life in Christ. That which belongs to God, even if it is crushed, will always increase and spread.

SAINT ALEXIUS, CONFESSOR

Saint Alexius, the son of the Senator Euphemian, renounced all earthly things, and departed as a pilgrim to Palestine. He returned after seven years, and in his father’s house was taken for an indigent beggar. There he died unknown in 404 A.D.

From the treatise On the Mysteries by Saint Ambrose, Bishop
(Nn. 8-11: SC 25 bis, 158-160)

We are born again of water and the Holy Ghost

What did you see in the baptistry? Water certainly, but not water alone. You see the Levites ministering there, the high priest asking questions and consecrating. First of all, the Apostle taught you that we must fix our eyes, not on the things that are seen but on the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are for a time, but the things that are unseen are Eternal. In another place you may read that the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, can be understood through the things that have been created, and His everlasting power and godhead can be known through His works. The LORD Himself says: If you do not believe Me, believe at least My works. Then believe that the presence of the godhead is there. You believe in its activity, and refuse to believe in its Presence? How could there be activity if there were no Presence beforehand?

Consider how ancient the mystery is, prefigured as it was in the creation of the world itself. In the very beginning, when God made Heaven and earth, the spirit, God tells us, moved over the waters. Was the spirit not active as he moved over the waters? When the prophet tells you that by the Word of the LORD the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their array, realize that the Spirit was active in this making of the world. The fact that He moved over the waters, and the fact that he was active, both rest on prophetic testimony. Moses tells us that the Spirit moved over the waters; David testifies that the Spirit was active.

Listen to another testimony. All flesh had become corrupt because of its sins. God said: My Spirit will not remain in men, for they are flesh. God thus shows that the spiritual grace is repelled by uncleanness of the flesh and by the stain of more serious sin. So God resolved to restore the gift He had given. He sent the flood and ordered Noah, the righteous man, into the ark. When the flood began to subside Noah sent first a raven, then a dove, which, as we read, came back with an olive branch. You see water, you see wood, you look on a dove, and you hesitate to believe the mystery?

The Water is that in which the flesh is dipped, to wash away all its sin. In it all wickedness is buried. The Wood is that to which the LORD Jesus was fastened when He suffered for us. The Dove is the one in whose likeness the Holy Ghost descended, as you have learned from the New Testament: the Spirit who breathes into you peace of soul, tranquility of mind.

DAILY MEDITATION 

Saint Alexius was the only son of parents preeminent among the Roman nobles for virtue, birth, and wealth. On his wedding night, by God‘s special inspiration, he secretly quitted Rome, and, journeying to Edessa, in the Far East, gave away all that he had brought with him, content henceforth to live on alms at the gate of Our Lady’s church in that city. it came to pass that the servants of Saint Alexius, whom his father sent in search of him, arrived at Edessa, and, seeing him among the poor at the gate of Our Lady’s church, give him an alms, not recognizing him. Whereupon the man of God, rejoicing, said, “I, thank Thee, O, LORD, who hast called me and granted that I should receive for Thy name’s, sake, and alms from my own slaves. Deign to fulfil in me the work though hast begun.” 

After 17 years, when his sanctity was miraculously manifested by the Blessed Virgin‘s image, he once more sought obscurity by flight. On his way to Tarsus, contrary winds drove his ship to Rome. There no one recognized in the wan and tattered mendicant the air, Rome’s noblest house; not even his sorrowing parents, who had vainly sent throughout the world in search of him. From his fathers charity, he begged mean corner of his palace, as a shelter, and the leavings of his table as food. Thus he spent 17 years, bearing patiently, the mockery, and ill-usage of his own slaves, and witnessing daily, the inconsolable grief of his spouse and parents. At last, when death had ended this cruel martyrdom, they learned too late, from a writing in his own hand, who it was that they had unknowingly sheltered. God bore testimony to His servant’s sanctity by many miracles. He died early in the fifth century.

Reflection: we must always be ready to sacrifice our dearest and best natural affections in obedience to the call of our Heavenly Father. “Call no man your father upon earth; for one is your Father in Heaven:“ [Matthew 23:9]. Our LORD has taught us this, not by words only, but by His own example, and by that of His saints.

John Gilmary Shea (d. 1892) – American author, and celebrated historian, regarded as the father of American Catholic history.

The Sword That Brings Sanctity

Céline! Let us make use of Jesus’ preference, which has taught us so many things in so few years, and let us neglect nothing that can please Him. Let us be adorned by the Sun of His Love!This sun is burning, let us be consumed by love. Saint Francis de Sales says: “When the fire of love is in a heart, all the furniture flies out the windows.” Oh, let us allow nothing, nothing in our heart except Jesus.

Let us not believe we can love without suffering, without suffering much. Our nature is our riches, our means of earning our bread. It is so precious that Jesus came on earth purposely to take possession of it. And still we would like to suffer grandly! Céline, what an illusion! We’d never want to fall? What does it matter, my Jesus, if I fall at each moment; I see my weakness through this and this is a great gain for me. You can see through this what I can do and now You will be more tempted to carry me in Your arms. Then I am not going to be disturbed, but I shall always stretch out my arms suppliant and filled with love. I cannot believe that You would abandon me.

It was when the saints were at the feet of Our LORD that they encountered their crosses. Sanctity does not consist in saying beautiful things, it does not even consist in thinking them, in feeling them. It consists in suffering,and suffering everything. Sanctity! We must conquer it at the point of the sword; we must suffer. A day will come when the shadows will disappear, and there will remain only Joy, inebriation. Let us profit from our one moment of suffering. Let us see only each moment. A moment is a treasure. One act of love will make us know Jesus better, it will bring us closer to Him during the whole of Eternity.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux († 1897), “the Little Flower”, was a French Carmelite nun who died at the age of twenty-four. She was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997. She wrote this letter when she was sixteen years old. [From Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: General Correspondence, Vol. I, 1877-1890, John Clarke, o.c.d., Tr.

“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