St. Thomas Aquianas, painting from the Dominican site
Posted on 01/28/2005 6:45:55 AM PST by Salvation
Oops--St. Thomas Aquinas, painting from the Dominican site
Friday January 28, 2005 Third Week in Ordinary Time
Reading (Hebrews 10:32-39) Gospel (St. Mark 4:26-34)
Our Lord, in today’s Gospel reading, tells us that the kingdom of God is like the seed that is planted in the soil. It begins to grow and the farmer knows not how it happens, but it just happens on its own. What happens with the kingdom of God is that it is planted within us. We begin to pray and we begin to try to develop virtue, and we notice how it grows. It is a fascinating thing to watch because when you look at the effort you put into it, as opposed to the fruit that comes out of it, it is quite a mystery as to how this works because clearly the virtue is growing at a far greater pace than the effort you are really putting forward. Like the farmer who goes to sleep at night and rises in the day, he does not put the effort forth because it is for the Lord to bring up the fruit. He allows it to rain and He allows the sun to shine on it, and all of the things grow. That is how it works in the spiritual life. The farmer had to do his part – he had to go out and till the ground, he had to sow the seed, he had to take care of things as he was able and as he needed to do – but the Lord took care of the rest. What happens for us is that if we want to grow in holiness, if we truly want to seek a life of virtue, not only does it require that we have the time for prayer set aside, but it also is going to require that the Lord do the rest. We have our part to do. We have to till the heart, we have to open it up and allow the seed to be planted there, but then the Lord takes care of the rest. We go to sleep, we rise, we see things happening and we know not how.
But Saint Paul, in the first reading, makes it pretty clear how it is going to happen, that is, through a contest of suffering. We all know that if we are going to live according to the ways of Jesus Christ that we are going to suffer. If we listen to what the early Christian people had to endure (remember, again, these were the priests who had converted that he is writing to in this letter), he says, At times you were publicly exposed to abuse and affliction; at other times you associated yourselves with those who were being so treated. You joined in the sufferings of those in prison. You joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property. Now just put yourself into that situation and ask, “What would happen if I had to do that today? What would happen if I got dragged out into the streets and was publicly exposed to shame and humiliation? What if they came and confiscated my property just because I was a Catholic? What if they wanted to put me to death for that reason?” Saint Paul said the early Christians joyfully accepted this. Would we? They could joyfully accept it because of their prayer life, because they were seeking true union with Christ.
So Saint Paul tells us, You need endurance to do the Will of God and to obtain what He promised. We are going to have the opportunity to do exactly this, and it is coming upon us rather soon. If we are not ready, we are going to do exactly what Saint Paul warns us of. In quoting the Old Testament, he says, My just one shall live by faith, and if he draws back I take no pleasure in him. Just look around at what is happening to person after person after person: they are drawing back. They do not want to live the faith. It is getting too difficult. There is too much suffering. The evil around us is growing exponentially day by day by day, and people are falling away because they do not endure, because they are unwilling to accept the suffering, because they have no prayer life and therefore they fall away because there is no depth.
This is something we are going to have to deal with, and each one of us needs to make sure we are doing everything we can. God will take care of the rest. The Lord is going to allow the suffering. He is going to allow the trials and the persecutions and the tribulations and the difficulties and whatever else it is going to require for us to become holy. Now the question is, do we want it? We want it as long as it is fun, as long as we can go to prayer and have all kinds of consolations and say, “Oh, it’s just so wonderful. I have this emotional experience when I go to prayer, and, oh, it feels so good!” That is not what prayer is all about. But when it is not all gushy and warm and fuzzy, well, then we do not want to go pray because it is not pleasant, because it hurts, because it is dry and dark and painful and difficult. The same is true with being Catholic these days. As long as you can go to church and strum a guitar and sing happy songs, hey, we can be entertained; it is fun. That is not being Catholic. That is not what the worship of God is all about. But when we are made to suffer, when our faith is tested, it is not going to be warm and fuzzy anymore. If we are not accustomed to doing our part in prayer and seeking the grace to persevere, we are not going to make it. So we need to make sure that we are doing what we can. God will take care of the rest, but the way God takes care of it is not only to provide the grace but to provide the suffering. And if we do not want the suffering, then we do not want Jesus Christ.
If we are truly going to live the Christian life then – thanks be to God! – we are going to have the opportunity to prove it because we have not had that opportunity in our lives and it has really been a long time for most Christian people. Those in Africa and those in some of the Asian countries have suffered for their faith; they have proven themselves. We have been able to be pretty wimpy Catholics, but the day is soon at hand when that will no longer be the case. And then we have a choice to make. Do we want to be social Catholics? Do we want to be warm, fuzzy Christians? Or do we want to be real Catholics who unite themselves with Jesus Christ and who are going to persevere to the end? The Lord is going to provide the grace, are we willing to accept it? Are we willing to dispose ourselves to receive it? He will take care of His part; we have to take care of ours. Our part is not that difficult. It is to pray, it is to open the heart, it is to allow the Lord to take care of what is planted there so that the kingdom of God through suffering will grow and produce great fruit.
* This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.
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Hebrews 10:32-39; Mark 4:26-34 Walking down any street or sitting on a bench watching the people go by, we cannot help being amazed at the endless diversity of the human race of which each of us is but a tiny part. At this very moment, there are billions of individual human beings alive on this planet, each one unique and like no other, each one a potential masterpiece in the making. Will each one in fact become that masterpiece? Sad but true, the answer is no. In far too many of us, much or even most of the growth and prospering that was possible and that God fully intended for us will never come to be. That tragedy will surely come to be if we have not prepared the soil for the garden that God wants to plant in us. How do we avoid that tragedy and make that all-important preparation? We learn to be quiet and to listen to the whispering of the Spirit in the life around us and within us. Like clay in the potter’s hands, we make ourselves available to being reshaped and changed by the Spirit. But before any of that can happen, a confident, expectant trust in the Spirit must envelop our soul. God will bring life and growth if we prepare the ground of our soul to receive it. So trust him and get to work; there’s not a moment to lose. |
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January 28, 2005
 St. Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274)
By universal consent Thomas Aquinas is the preeminent spokesman of the Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation. He is one of the great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church, honored with the titles Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor. At five he was given to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino in his parents’ hopes that he would choose that way of life and later become abbot. In 1239 he was sent to Naples to complete his studies. It was here that he was first attracted to Aristotle’s philosophy. By 1243, Thomas abandoned his family’s plans for him and joined the Dominicans, much to his mother’s dismay. On her order, Thomas was captured by his brother and kept at home for over a year. Once free, he went to Paris and then to Cologne, where he finished his studies with Albert the Great. He held two professorships at Paris, lived at the court of Pope Urban IV, directed the Dominican schools at Rome and Viterbo, combated adversaries of the mendicants, as well as the Averroists, and argued with some Franciscans about Aristotelianism. His greatest contribution to the Catholic Church is his writings. The unity, harmony and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural human knowledge, pervades his writings. One might expect Thomas, as a man of the gospel, to be an ardent defender of revealed truth. But he was broad enough, deep enough, to see the whole natural order as coming from God the Creator, and to see reason as a divine gift to be highly cherished. The Summa Theologiae, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on.... All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.” He died March 7, 1274. Quote:
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The Vatican 2 liturgical committee that invented the Novus Ordo also revamped the litugical calendar. They removed many saints, and moved others around. One more way of burning all bridges to the past. They moved St. Thomas Aquinas' feast day from March 7th to Jan. 28th, on the excuse of celebrating his birthday instead of the day he entered into eternal glory. Latin Rite Traditionalists continue to celebrate March 7th as the liturgical feast day of St. Thomas.
It makes no sense that it isn't on March 7th then. Aren't most saints feastdays on the day of their death? When they entered heaven? Hmmm.
Thanks for your reply. I figured it got changed somewhere.
| Mk 4:26-34 | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Douay-Rheims | Vulgate |
| 26 | And he said: So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth, | et dicebat sic est regnum Dei quemadmodum si homo iaciat sementem in terram |
| 27 | And should sleep, and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring, and grow up whilst he knoweth not. | et dormiat et exsurgat nocte ac die et semen germinet et increscat dum nescit ille |
| 28 | For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear. | ultro enim terra fructificat primum herbam deinde spicam deinde plenum frumentum in spica |
| 29 | And when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. | et cum se produxerit fructus statim mittit falcem quoniam adest messis |
| 30 | And he said: To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? or to what parable shall we compare it? | et dicebat cui adsimilabimus regnum Dei aut cui parabolae conparabimus illud |
| 31 | It is as a grain of mustard seed: which when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that are in the earth: | sicut granum sinapis quod cum seminatum fuerit in terra minus est omnibus seminibus quae sunt in terra |
| 32 | And when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air may dwell under the shadow thereof. | et cum seminatum fuerit ascendit et fit maius omnibus holeribus et facit ramos magnos ita ut possint sub umbra eius aves caeli habitare |
| 33 | And with many such parables, he spoke to them the word, according as they were able to hear. | et talibus multis parabolis loquebatur eis verbum prout poterant audire |
| 34 | And without parable he did not speak unto them; but apart, he explained all things to his disciples. | sine parabola autem non loquebatur eis seorsum autem discipulis suis disserebat omnia |
Not anymore. If the birth date is known, the saint's feast day is on the birthday.
But it is not unimaginable that some day the Committee might say that they must use the Traditional Mass with the New Calendar.
Catholics who have placed all their hopes in the Indult will then have their backs to the wall.
Um, sorry, the movie wasn't about St. Thomas Aquinas. After reading the "Saint of the Day" thread, I see that St. Thomas died a natural death, not a martyr's death. The Saint I'm thinking of is Thomas å Becket who died when King Henry of England cried out, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest" and several men loyal to the King then traveled to Canterbury England and slew him on the altar of the cathedral. The movie was titled "Becket".
Again, I apologize for my confusion.
Prayers offered to the Lord for the care and protection of all Christians throughout the world, especially in lands of persecution.
Prayers offered to the Lord for health concerns. He knows our needs before we even ask.
**Traditional Mass with the New Calendar.**
I don't think they would like that.
thank for the translations. Differences there today!
Amen to both of those prayers!
I think the movie got talked about in one of them.
This, I think, gave rise to the legend of a hidden gospel by Jesus Himself, common among the Gnostics and later the Muslims.
Thank you very much.
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