Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings, 02-21-05, Opt. St. Peter Damian, Dr. Church [Reform & Renewal]

USCCB.org/New American Bible ^ | 02-21-05 | New American Bible

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February 21, 2005
Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Psalm: Monday 11

Reading I
Dn 9:4b-10

"LORD, great and awesome God,
you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you
and observe your commandments!
We have sinned, been wicked and done evil;
we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws.
We have not obeyed your servants the prophets,
who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes,
our fathers, and all the people of the land.
Justice, O Lord, is on your side;
we are shamefaced even to this day:
we, the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem,
and all Israel, near and far,
in all the countries to which you have scattered them
because of their treachery toward you.
O LORD, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers,
for having sinned against you.
But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness!
Yet we rebelled against you
and paid no heed to your command, O LORD, our God,
to live by the law you gave us through your servants the prophets."


Responsorial Psalm
Ps 79:8, 9, 11 and 13

R (see 103:10a) Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
R Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name's sake.
R Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.
Let the prisoners' sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
R Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.


Gospel
Lk 6:36-38

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

"Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you."

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For your reading, reflection, faith-sharing, comments, questions, discussion.

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King of Endless Glory Ping!

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Lent 2005, Prayer, Reflection, Action for All

Reflections for Lent: February 6 -- March 27, 2005

The Three Practices of Lent: Praying, Fasting, Almsgiving

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Some wonderful threads to read and bump!

 

Mardi Gras' Catholic Roots [Shrove Tuesday]

The Holy Season of Lent -- Fast and Abstinence

The Holy Season of Lent -- The Stations of the Cross

[Suffering] His Pain Like Mine

Lent and Fasting

Ash Wednesday

All About Lent

Kids and Holiness: Making Lent Meaningful to Children

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St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah: Homosexual Situation Graver than Damian's Time

St. Peter Damian

St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah [Part 1]

St. Peter Damian : The Book of Gomorrah (Part 2)

[Salvation]

From: Luke 6:23-38

Love of Enemies (Continuation)

---

(Jesus said to his disciples,) [36] "Be merciful, even as your Father is
merciful.

[37] "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will
not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; [38] give, and it
will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together,
running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will
be the measure you get back."

---

Commentary:

36. The model of mercy which Christ sets before us is God Himself, of
whom St. Paul says, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us
in all our afflictions" (2 Cor 1:3-4). "The first quality of this
virtue", Fray Luis de Granada explains, "is that it makes men like God
and like the most glorious thing in Him, His mercy (Lk 6:36). For
certainly the greatest perfection a creature can have is to be like his
Creator, and the more like Him he is, the more perfect he is.
Certainly one of the things which is most appropriate to God is mercy,
which is what the Church means when it says that prayer: 'Lord God, to
whom it is proper to be merciful and forgiving...'. It says that this
is proper to God, because just as a creature, as creature, is
characteristically poor and needy (and therefore characteristically
receives and does not give), so, on the contrary, since God is
infinitely rich and powerful, to Him alone does it belong to give and
not to receive, and therefore it is appropriate for Him to be merciful
and forgiving" ("Book of Prayer and Meditation", third part, third
treatise).

This is the rule a Christian should apply: be compassionate towards
other people's afflictions as if they were one's own, and try to remedy
them. The Church spells out this rule by giving us a series of
corporal works of mercy (visiting and caring for the sick, giving food
to the hungry, drink to the thirsty...) and spiritual works of mercy
(teaching the ignorant, correcting the person who has erred, forgiving
injuries...): cf. "St Pius X Catechism", 944f.

We should also show understanding towards people who are in error:
"Love and courtesy of this kind should not, of course, make us
indifferent to truth and goodness. Love, in fact, impels the followers
of Christ to proclaim to all men the truth which saves. But we must
distinguish between the error (which must always be rejected) and the
person in error, who never loses his dignity as a person even though he
flounders amid false or inadequate religious ideas. God alone is the
judge and searcher of hearts; He forbids us to pass judgment on the
inner guilt of others" (Vatican II, "Gaudium Et Spes", 28).

38. We read in Sacred Scripture of the generosity of the widow of
Zarephath, whom God asked to give food to Elijah the prophet even
though she had very little left; He then rewarded her generosity by
constantly renewing her supply of meal and oil (1 kings 17:9ff). The
same sort of thing happened when the boy supplied the five loaves and
two fish which our Lord multiplied to feed a huge crowd of people (cf.
Jn 6:9)--a vivid example of what God does when we give Him whatever we
have, even if it does not amount to much.

God does not let Himself be outdone in generosity: "Go, generously and
like a child ask Him, 'What can You mean to give me when You ask me for
"this"?'" ([St] J. Escriva, "The Way", 153). However much we give God in
this life, He will give us more in life eternal.

---

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

[Salvation]

Monday, February 21, 2005
Lenten Weekday

First Reading: Psalm: Gospel:

Daniel 9:4-10 Psalm 79:8-9, 11, 13 Luke 6:36-38 And whence comes our pride if not from our forgetfulness of the Eucharist---that pride which finds cause for self-exaltation in the graces recieved, in the gifts of God. Are you afflicted with this pride when you communicate, when you feel within you the presence of Jesus, Who says to you," What! You exalt yourselves with the dignities and graces I have given you, with the privileged love I bear you! But see, I annihilate Myself. Do at least as I do!" Meditation on the self abasement of our Lord in the Sacrament is the true road to humility.  -- St. Peter Eymard

[Salvation]

Meditation on the self abasement of our Lord in the Sacrament is the true road to humility.

This speaks volumes to me about human pride! Thank you God, for this little tidbit.

[Salvation]

Catholic Culture

Collect:
All-powerful God, help us to follow the teachings and example of Peter Damian. By making Christ and the service of his Church the first love of our lives, may we come to the joys of eternal light where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Activities:

• » Teaching Self-Denial

Prayers:

• » Prayer for the Second Week of Lent
• » Lent Table Blessing 2

February 21, 2005

Optional Memorial of St. Peter Damian, bishop and doctor

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St. Peter Damian, a man of vehemence in all his actions who was brought up in the hard school of poverty, found that he had the vocation of a reformer. He exercised it in the first place against himself as one of the hermits of Fontavellana in about 10335, but he did not remain for long hidden in his cell: his colleagues soon made him their abbot (1043). In 1057, Stephen I made him Cardinal Bishop of Ostia. By his preaching and writings he was one of the valuable collaborators of the eleventh century popes in their great work of reform. Pope Leo XII declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1823. Before the reform of the General Roman Calendar his feast was celebrated on February 23.

The Station today is at St. Clement's. The oldest level is thought to be the titulus Clementis, one of the first parish churches in Rome, and probably belonged to the family of Titus Flavius Clemens, consul and martyr and a contemporary of Pope St Clement. Set right next to a pagan temple, a Mithraeum or Temple of Mithras, it was one of the first churches in Rome.

---

St. Peter Damian
St. Peter Damian must be numbered among the greatest of the Church's reformers in the Middle Ages, yes, even among the truly extra ordinary persons of all times. In Damian the scholar, men admire wealth of wisdom: in Damian the preacher of God's word, apostolic zeal; in Damian the monk, austerity and self-denial; in Damian the priest, piety and zeal for souls; in Damian the cardinal, loyalty and submission to the Holy See together with generous enthusiasm and devotion for the good of Mother Church. He was a personal friend of Pope Gregory VII. He died in 1072 at the age of 65.

On one occasion he wrote to a young nephew, "If I may speak figuratively, drive out the roaring beasts from your domain; do not cease from protecting yourself daily by receiving the Flesh and Blood of the Lord. Let your secret foe see your lips reddened with the Blood of Christ. He will shudder, cower back, and flee to his dark, dank retreat."

In his poem, the Divine Comedy, Dante places Damian in the "seventh heaven." That was his place for holy people who loved to think about or contemplate God. — The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch

Symbols: Cardinal bearing a discipline in his hand; pilgrim holding a papal Bull, to signify his many legations.

Things to Do:

• St. Peter Damian was a great reformer, often prescribing penances and fasting to lax religious. Choose a day every week, most appropriately Friday, on which you will fast and offer penances for specific intentions.

[Salvation]

**On one occasion he wrote to a young nephew, "If I may speak figuratively, drive out the roaring beasts from your domain; do not cease from protecting yourself daily by receiving the Flesh and Blood of the Lord. Let your secret foe see your lips reddened with the Blood of Christ. He will shudder, cower back, and flee to his dark, dank retreat."**

Daily Mass Reminder, no less! Thank you St. Peter Damian!

[Smartass]

The Apostle's Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.
He descended into hell. On the third day He rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand
of God the Father Almighty.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.
Amen.   †

[Salvation]

Thank you!

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American Cathlic's Saint of the Day

February 21, 2005

St. Peter Damian

(1007-1072)

Maybe because he was orphaned and had been treated shabbily by one of his brothers, Peter Damian was very good to the poor. It was the ordinary thing for him to have a poor person or two with him at table and he liked to minister personally to their needs.

Peter escaped poverty and the neglect of his own brother when his other brother, who was archpriest of Ravenna, took him under his wing. His brother sent him to good schools and Peter became a professor.

Already in those days Peter was very strict with himself. He wore a hair shirt under his clothes, fasted rigorously and spent many hours in prayer. Soon, he decided to leave his teaching and give himself completely to prayer with the Benedictines of the reform of St. Romuald at Fonte Avellana. They lived two monks to a hermitage. Peter was so eager to pray and slept so little that he soon suffered from severe insomnia. He found he had to use some prudence in taking care of himself. When he was not praying, he studied the Bible.

The abbot commanded that when he died Peter should succeed him. Abbot Peter founded five other hermitages. He encouraged his brothers in a life of prayer and solitude and wanted nothing more for himself. The Holy See periodically called on him, however, to be a peacemaker or troubleshooter, between two abbeys in dispute or a cleric or government official in some disagreement with Rome.

Finally, Pope Stephen IX made Peter the cardinal-bishop of Ostia. He worked hard to wipe out simony, and encouraged his priests to observe celibacy and urged even the diocesan clergy to live together and maintain scheduled prayer and religious observance. He wished to restore primitive discipline among religious and priests, warning against needless travel, violations of poverty and too comfortable living. He even wrote to the bishop of Besancon, complaining that the canons there sat down when they were singing the psalms in the Divine Office.

He wrote many letters. Some 170 are extant. We also have 53 of his sermons and seven lives, or biographies, that he wrote. He preferred examples and stories rather than theory in his writings. The liturgical offices he wrote are evidence of his talent as a stylist in Latin.

He asked often to be allowed to retire as cardinal-bishop of Ostia, and finally Alexander II consented. Peter was happy to become once again just a monk, but he was still called to serve as a papal legate. When returning from such an assignment in Ravenna, he was overcome by a fever. With the monks gathered around him saying the Divine Office, he died on February 22, 1072.

In 1828 he was declared a Doctor of the Church.

Comment:

Peter was a reformer and if he were alive today would no doubt encourage the renewal started by Vatican II. He would also applaud the greater emphasis on prayer that is shown by the growing number of priests, religious and laypersons who gather regularly for prayer, as well as the special houses of prayer recently established by many religious communities.

Quote:

“...Let us faithfully transmit to posterity the example of virtue which we have received from our forefathers” (St. Peter Damian).

[Ciexyz]

Prayers offered up for the safety of Terri Schiavo.

[Ciexyz]

The Presbyterian Church (USA) also says the Apostle's Creed, extolling the "Holy Catholic Church and the communion of saints", but they change the one line to "the quick and the dead" (which was the title of a Sharon Stone western film).

[Salvation]

Interesting wording then for the Apostles' Creed.

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Homily of the Day

Homily of the Day

Title:	Pardon and You Shall Be Pardoned
Author:	Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.
Date:	Monday, February 21, 2005

Daniel 9:4-10; Luke 6:36-38

As any priest could affirm from years of hearing confessions, most of us don’t see ourselves all that clearly. In assessing our progress as followers of Jesus, we tend to focus on peripheral matters and miss so much of the core. How many times has our examination of conscience sounded something like this? “I was late for Mass. I had distractions in my prayers. I forgot and ate meat on Ash Wednesday. And twice I had a little too much to drink. I’m sorry for these and all my sins.” Fine, so far as it goes, but there’s usually more, if we have the eyes to see.

Lent is a good time to look through a wide-angle lens and examine our lives in larger terms, for example, in terms of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Following Jesus means more than just staying out of trouble. It means holding ourselves responsible for living according to His big vision.

Honestly facing our shortcomings according to Jesus’s criteria of a good human life will lead us to a wholesome humility which will in turn beget a generous compassion for others. Seeing ourselves as God sees us is a quick solvent for any temptation to judge others or to cherish grievances, for it underscores poignantly our own urgent need for understanding and forgiveness.

If your heart has owned the truth about yourself, forgiving others will come naturally, and that forgiveness will come back to you in abundance. It never fails, and it’s the rock on which all family and all friendship is built.

 

[Salvation]

 

 

A Voice in the Desert

 

Monday February 21, 2005   Second Week of Lent

Reading (Daniel 9:4b-10)  Gospel (St. Luke 6:36-38)

 In the first reading today, the prophet Daniel speaks on behalf of all the people of Israel, and certainly speaks exactly what any one of us can say: We have sinned, been wicked and done what is evil; we have rebelled and departed from Your commandments and laws. We have not obeyed Your servants the prophets…and on he goes. Can any one of us suggest that we have actually done anything different? We have chosen sin; we have chosen rebellion. The real tragedy is that in our society people do not even realize that that is what is happening. Our Holy Father, a number of years ago, said, “One of the greatest problems in our world is the loss of the sense of sin.” People do not even know what a sin is anymore. They are offending God left and right and do not even realize it.  

Of course, part of that is they do not even recognize God. So it is important that we look at how Daniel began his prayer: Lord, great and awesome God… We need to recognize the glory of God. We need to understand Who He is. Not just in our minds to be able to acknowledge that He is omnipotent and He is infinite and so on, but we need to know it in our hearts in a relational way, because it is when we get down into the heart that we are going to be able to understand why these things are so offensive, not just understand theoretically but practically, because we have a greater insight into Who He is; and because we have a greater insight into Who He is, we therefore have a greater understanding of what it is that He expects of us, what it is that is offensive to Him and why. 

It is the same thing with any relationship. For those who are married, you understand very well that there are some things that are offensive to your spouse. And because your spouse finds some of these things offensive, even though you might not have thought at one time in your life that it was the least bit offensive, you have now come to understand that this offends this person and therefore you do not do it because you do not want to offend somebody whom you love.  

That is the same way it is, except even more, in our relationship with God. It is not just a matter of recognizing objectively that this thing is wrong and therefore thinking, “Because it’s on a list of sins I guess I’d better not do it,” but rather it has to do with the reason. It is wrong because it offends God and we would not want to do it because we do not want to offend somebody that we love, not merely because there is a rule that says “This is what you do not do” or “This is what you should do” because when that is the case then when we decide that we want to do it our way anyhow we are going to rebel and we are going to sin. Whereas when we truly love somebody, then we are going to be much more apt to do what we know to be right and pleasing to that other person. In this case, the person is God. 

Now if we are going to do what is pleasing to God, what is it going to look like? Jesus tells us exactly in the Gospel: Stop judging, stop condemning, forgive, give. These are the things that He is looking for. We, on the one hand, are saying, “We have rebelled, we have sinned, we have been disobedient,” and Jesus is saying what we need to do is quit judging other people, stop condemning other people, that we need to forgive other people, and we need to give to other people. These are not things that come easily or naturally to anyone in our society. It is a human problem in the first place, but in a society that is as selfish and sinful as ours these things do not come naturally. We have to work at it. But again, if we are in a close relationship with the Lord, then these things will come more naturally because we will recognize that these are the things that are pleasing to Him and therefore we are going to do them, not simply because He commanded us to do them (because He commanded us a long time ago and we still do not do them) but rather because out of love we are going to want to do what is pleasing and good and right.  

That is what Our Lord is asking of us: to be like God. Well, the only way you are going to be like God is to get close to Him, to love Him, to enter deeply into that relationship with Him. It is the only possible way that you are going to be like God. It is not just making your external actions look good; it is a matter of changing the whole interior disposition so that we truly are good in the way that we are dealing with things. It is very clearly laid out what it is that we are directed to do by Our Lord and what it is that we know that we do on our own. And so we need to pray; we need to enter into the depths of our hearts and seek union with Christ there. That union with Christ will make us more Christ-like, and when we are more Christ-like then we will stop sinning, we will stop rebelling, and we will be obedient. Not obedient because we are forced to do something, but obedient because of love – and because we love Him, we will do whatever we can to please Him.  

*  This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

[Salvation]

The Word Among Us

Monday, February 21, 2005 Meditation Luke 6:36-38 Stop judging. Stop condemning. Forgive. Why is it so difficult for us to do this? We hear often enough what we must do: We must stop judging so that we may not be judged (Matthew 7:1-2). We are told that by our words we will be judged (12:37). We are also told that if we want to be reconciled with God, we need to examine why our acts of self-righteousness and disobedience set us on the wrong course. In other words, our examination of conscience needs to be an opportunity to cleanse our hearts as well as to atone for our actions. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee.” Thus begins our traditional Act of Contrition. It can be very easy to recite this prayer hastily, yet there are times when we need to focus our attention on the word “heartily.” God wants to know where our hearts are. He wants to search our inner lives so that we can see the hidden thoughts, attitudes, fears, and desires that lie behind the things we do. In the long run, God is far more interested in our inner lives than in the actions that arise from them. For he knows that if he can change us on the inside, he will have caused a dramatic change in the things we say and do. For example, Jesus promises special blessings for the merciful (Matthew 5:7). He tells us that the degree to which we have forgiveness in our hearts is the degree to which we will experience his overflowing mercy (Luke 6:38). Isn’t that a great deal? We won’t just be pardoned for individual sins. We will be changed and lifted up. We will find a new intimacy with Jesus and a new power to live as he lived. We’ll become a new creation, both on the inside and on the outside. There is a hymn that chants, “Change my heart, O God. May I be like you.” Let’s make this soulful plea our own as we let God shine his gentle, probing light into the dark places within us. “Holy Spirit, help me to show mercy to all those who have wounded me. Pour out your grace upon me and teach me to love as you love: with mercy and compassion.”

[annalex]

Lk 6:36-38
#	Douay-Rheims	Vulgate
36	Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.	estote ergo misericordes sicut et Pater vester misericors est
37	Judge not: and you shall not be judged. Condemn not: and you shall not be condemned. Forgive: and you shall be forgiven.	nolite iudicare et non iudicabimini nolite condemnare et non condemnabimini dimittite et dimittemini
38	Give: and it shall be given to you: good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.	date et dabitur vobis mensuram bonam confersam et coagitatam et supereffluentem dabunt in sinum vestrum eadem quippe mensura qua mensi fueritis remetietur vobis