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To: All
Secret Harbor ~ Portus Secretioris

17 October 2009

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading, Isaiah 53:10-11
From a Christian perspective, it’s relatively easy to see Jesus as the fulfillment of this prophecy of the suffering servant. From that understanding, the words “long life” would translate into “eternal life” as Jesus is the One Who gave His life as an offering for sin, taking our guilt upon Himself. The sufferings of this Servant would have a redemptive value.

This must have been a difficult concept when this message was first proclaimed. The Jews endured much suffering and spent many hours in prayer, pleading to God for relief; and to hear or read that their hope would be fulfilled by yet more suffering must have seemed absurd.

Today, not even all Christians see a value in suffering. Sadly, some believe that suffering is caused by a lack of faith. From a Catholic point of view, our sufferings are united with Christ's in such a way that we can offer them in union with His redemptive work for the salvation of souls.

Second Reading, Hebrews 4:14-16
In the Old Covenant, a sacrifice required a priest and a victim. In the New and Everlasting Covenant, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was both Priest and Victim.

One of the many beauties of our relationship with our Lord is that He was willing to take on our way of life by the most humble means possible, making our ability to relate to Him much easier because we know that He has already endured what we endure. Jesus not only lived those circumstances which tempt us and often lead us to our shortcomings, He also took those shortcomings and failures upon Himself making it considerably easier for us to relate to Him. Knowing that, we can indeed, as the last verse says, "confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help."

Gospel, Mark 10:35-45
There’s something very alluring about greatness. Many would love to achieve it or minimally be in the presence of it. Many young adults have spent the night outside of an arena just so they could be one of the first in line to buy tickets to see their favorite rock stars. At Hollywood movie premiers, look how many people line up along the red carpet just to get a glimpse of their favorite movie stars. Nowadays, a small fortune is spent to go to professional sporting events to watch athletes perform seemingly super-human feats. Mostly what’s intriguing about greatness is the power, fame and wealth that goes along with it. All of these forms of greatness, however, are short-lived.

In this Gospel, James and John are looking to achieve greatness. And the greatness they are looking for is not exactly what Jesus had in mind. They want to sit at the right and left of Jesus. Jesus tells them they do not know what they are asking. They are thinking of Jesus as the eventual head of some sort of world government; and by sitting at His right and left they would be considered powerful men, at least by human standards. Their minds at this point haven’t really grasped what greatness is in terms of the Messianic mission.

Take a moment and think of those you would consider to be great Christians. If you were able to interview all of them you might find very different personalities, some married, some single, some ordained ministers, doctors, lawyers and ditch diggers. One common denominator, however, that all of them would be able to share with you is the sufferings they have endured. When you are serious about your walk with the Lord, that walk is an extremely difficult one, with many sufferings. Suffering is an inescapable ingredient for not only being a great Christian but also being human. With God’s grace, our acceptance of this makes us great Christians; and this greatness is quite different, if not opposite, of the type of greatness mentioned earlier. In worldly terms, greatness means being served; in Christian terms, greatness means to serve.

The desire of any great Christian is to follow in the Footsteps of Jesus Who suffered and gave His life as a ransom for many. Great Christians have also given their lives literally. But offering one’s life doesn’t have to mean the death of the body. It could mean death to a way of life: a life of immorality, untrustworthiness, greed and anything else that is contrary to what Jesus taught. It is much easier to give up and surrender to these immoralities since today’s world is flooded with such things. Much of the sufferings that Christians endure are the temptations to give up the good fight and surrender to the ways of the culture. But we don’t have to fight it alone. We have our Lord and each other.

Greatness in a worldly sense is often single-minded and perhaps egotistical. Jesus tells His apostles and us, His devoted followers, that among us it shall not be so. Christianity already has One Holy Trinity and there simply isn’t any room for the trinity of me, myself and I. We are called to be servants and slaves, putting the needs of others before our own. If we allow temptation to pollute our minds, this way of life may not sound so great. But our ultimate greatness cannot be achieved in this life; in fact, it cannot be achieved at all by us. Our ultimate greatness is not something we earn; rather, it is given as a gift by the greatest One of all.

32 posted on 10/18/2009 5:51:47 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: All
Vultus Christi

Ut sanaret filium ejus

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cafarnao.gif

Passing On the Tradition

One of the best things about being a very small monastic household is the freedom to make use of the opportunities for passing on the tradition that present themselves in the course of our prayer and our work. This morning, for example, I was able to say a few words about the significance of today's Benedictus Antiphon, right after we sang it at Lauds. Given that we have daily Mass in the Extraordinary Form, today is the 20th Sunday After Pentecost, and the Gospel is John 4:46-53. The Benedictus Antiphon is drawn from it.

He came again therefore into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain ruler, whose son was sick at Capharnaum. He having heard that Jesus was come from Judea into Galilee, sent to him and prayed him to come down and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said to him: Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not. The ruler saith to him: Lord, come down before that my son die. Jesus saith to him: Go thy way. Thy son liveth. The man believed the word which Jesus said to him and went his way. And as he was going down, his servants met him: and they brought word, saying, that his son lived. He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he grew better. And they said to him: Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him. The father therefore knew that it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him: Thy son liveth. And himself believed, and his whole house.

Benedictus Antiphon

Antiphonale Monasticum, p. 611.

Erat quidam regulus
cuius filius infirmabatur Capharnaum.
Hic cum audisset, quod Iesus veniret in Galilaeam,
rogabat eum, ut sanaret filium ejus.

The Name of Jesus

The musical summit of the antiphon is over the Most Holy Name of Jesus: The Lord God saves, the Lord God heals, the Lord God makes whole. Everything, then, in the antiphon moves upward to the Name of Jesus or flows therefrom.

Place and Time

The words Capharnaum, and Galilaeam even more so, are given a rich musical treatment, suggesting the importance of place in the economy of the Incarnation. Jesus, our Saving God, is not indifferent to what some would dismiss as mere mundane considerations: place and time. The wonder of the Incarnation lies, precisely, in this: that our God comes to meet each of us in a given place, one that can be circumscribed geographically and pinpointed on a map; at a given moment in time. This given moment on the calendars and clocks of our chronos becomes the moment of the Divine Inbreaking, God's moment, His kairos.

The Magnificat Antiphon

Antiphonale Monasticum, p. 612.

The ruler intercedes with Jesus for his sick son: rogabat eum, ut sanaret filium eius. Only at the Magnificat Antiphon of Second Vespers do we hear the wondrous outcome of the ruler's supplication. "The father therefore knew that it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him: Thy son liveth. And himself believed, and his whole house." Again, the Name of Jesus is given a musical treatment that makes it the heart and centre of the whole antiphon.

The Sacramental Quality of Neums

I explained to my brothers this morning that every neum has a "sacramental" quality. It is, as Saint Gertrude the Great experienced, a vehicle of grace both for the one who sings it and the one who hears it. Inspired by the Holy Ghost, the Church clothes the Word of God in the sacred vesture of her chant. Like a garment that emphasizes and prolongs the movement of a dancer's body, so does the chant emphasize and prolongs the movement of the Word in medio ecclesiae.


33 posted on 10/18/2009 6:02:30 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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