Collect: O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our pleas, and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace, that in following your commands we may please you by our resolve and our deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
o French Style Shepherd's Pie
o Hear No Evil
o Humble Confession
o June Devotion: The Sacred Heart
o Novena to the Sacred Heart
· Ordinary Time: June 16th
· Monday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time
Old Calendar: St. John Francis Regis, priest (Hist); St. Benno, bishop (Hist)
Historically today is the feast of St. John Francis Regis, who was ordained into the Society of Jesus in 1630. He was gifted with a marvelous talent for missions, he labored for the conversion of the Huguenots, assisted the needy, and aided in the rescue of wayward women. Also the historical feast of St. Benno of Meissen who labored to convert the Slavs, established numerous religious edifices, and is said to have founded the cathedral of Meissen.
St. John Francis Regis
Born into a family of some wealth, John Francis was so impressed by his Jesuit educators that he himself wished to enter the Society of Jesus. He did so at age 18. Despite his rigorous academic schedule he spent many hours in chapel, often to the dismay of fellow seminarians who were concerned about his health. Following his ordination to the priesthood, he undertook missionary work in various French towns. While the formal sermons of the day tended toward the poetic, his discourses were plain. But they revealed the fervor within him and attracted people of all classes. Father Regis especially made himself available to the poor. Many mornings were spent in the confessional or at the altar celebrating Mass; afternoons were reserved for visits to prisons and hospitals.
The Bishop of Viviers, observing the success of Father Regis in communicating with people, sought to draw on his many gifts, especially needed during the prolonged civil and religious strife then rampant throughout France. With many prelates absent and priests negligent, the people had been deprived of the sacraments for 20 years or more. Various forms of Protestantism were thriving in some cases while a general indifference toward religion was evident in other instances. For three years Father Regis traveled throughout the diocese, conducting missions in advance of a visit by the bishop. He succeeded in converting many people and in bringing many others back to religious observances.
Though Father Regis longed to work as a missionary among the North American Indians in Canada, he was to live out his days working for the Lord in the wildest and most desolate part of his native France. There he encountered rigorous winters, snowdrifts and other deprivations. Meanwhile, he continued preaching missions and earned a reputation as a saint. One man, entering the town of Saint-Andé, came upon a large crowd in front of a church and was told that people were waiting for "the saint" who was coming to preach a mission.
The last four years of his life were spent preaching and in organizing social services, especially for prisoners, the sick and the poor. In the autumn of 1640, Father Regis sensed that his days were coming to a conclusion. He settled some of his affairs and prepared for the end by continuing to do what he did so well: speaking to the people about the God who loved them. On December 31, he spent most of the day with his eyes on the crucifix. That evening, he died. His final words were: "Into thy hands I commend my spirit."
He was canonized in 1737.
— Excerpted from Saint of the Day, Leonard Foley, O.F.M.
Patron: Kansas City, MO; marriage; illegitimate children
Things to Do:
St. Benno of Meissen
In the year 1066 a nobleman named Benno was made Bishop of Meissen, in Saxony. The Emperor of Germany at that time, Henry IV, was a boy of sixteen, and he was a very different kind of person from St. Henry II, who had always tried to rule the State for the good of religion and the Church. Henry IV, on the other hand, intended to try to make the Church obey the State, and one of his plans was to make the German bishops entirely dependent on him. He, and not the Pope, gave to each newly made bishop the crosier and the ring which showed his 'marriage' to the Church.
But it happened that at that time there was one of the greatest of the Popes, St. Gregory VII, who was equally determined that the Emperor should do nothing of the kind; and this led to the long struggle you read about in your history books. It was called the `Investiture Contest,' and went on for many years all over Europe to decide whether the Pope, as Head of the Church, or the ruler of the State should `invest' bishops with the symbols of their holy office.
The reason St. Benno is important among the saints of Germany is because, unlike some of the German bishops, he stood out against the Emperor, and because not even imprisonment could make him say that Henry was right. We do not know very much about his life, apart from the warfare and struggles of the time. But there is one story which has become famous. When the Pope had said that the Emperor, because he would not obey the Church, was not to be allowed to receive Holy Communion Henry hoped that the German bishops would take no notice of this `excommunication.’ He rode with his followers to Meissen and demanded entry to the cathedral. Benno realized that there was nothing he could do to keep him out unless he shut the cathedral to everyone, so he ordered everything to be fastened up from the inside and then the great door locked on the outside. When this had been done, in front of all the people, he threw the key far out into the river Elbe.
Henry knew that if he gave his soldiers orders to break down the door he would have every one against him, so he rode away, vowing vengeance on the Bishop. When he had gone the question was how the cathedral could be opened again. Benno, after much prayer, told a fisherman to throw his net into the river as near as he could to where the key had fallen, and, so the story says, among the fish that were caught that day was one which had the key hanging on to one of its fins. So, among the paintings of the saints which you can see today, you can always recognize St. Benno, because he is holding a fish and a key.
He lived to be a very old man (some say that he was nearly a hundred when he died), and at the end of his life he followed the example of so many of the German saints and went to preach to the barbarians on the outskirts of the country who were still heathen. He was buried in his cathedral at Meissen, but when, at the time of the German Reformation, four hundred years later, the countryside left the Catholic Church and became Protestant his body was removed, for safety, to Munich, and from that time St. Benno has been considered the Patron Saint of that city.
Patron: Munich
Vultus Christi
Draw Me to Thy Piercèd Side
Monday, 16 June 2014 06:27
June 16th is the feast of one of the first mystics of the Sacred Heart: Saint Lutgarde of Aywières. Some years ago I was given a piece of her wooden choirstall: one of my most treasured relics.
Wounded by Love
Saint Lutgarde was the contemporary of Saints Francis and Clare. She was born in 1182, just one year after the little Poor Man of Assisi. Both were destined to share in the Passion of Christ; both would bear the impression of Christ’s wounds. Saint Lutgarde is often depicted — as are both Saint Bernard and Saint Francis — held in the embrace of Jesus Crucified, and invited to drink from the wound in His Sacred Side.
Mother of Preachers
The prolific multiplication of Cistercian-Benedictine monasteries of women in the Low Countries obliged the White Nuns to turn to the newly founded friars, disciples of Francis and Dominic, rather than to their brother monks, for spiritual and sacramental assistance. Lutgarde was a friend and mother to the early Dominicans and Franciscans, supporting their preaching by her prayer and fasting, offering them hospitality, ever eager for news of their missions and spiritual conquests. Her first biographer relates that the friars named her mater praedicatorum, the mother of preachers.
Woman of the Church
Lutgarde is the classic example of “the enclosed nun with the unenclosed mind.” Her deep sense of the Church, her keen interest in the preaching mission of the mendicant friars, both Dominican and Franciscan, made her a greathearted woman, a woman of Catholic dimensions.
Prayer and Fasting
For Lutgarde, enclosure was no impediment to a real participation in the mission of preaching the Gospel. From within her monastery, she followed the friars in their travels, uniting her prayer and fasting to their apostolic labours. Lutgarde had a compelling insight into Jesus’ words to the apostles after their failure to deliver a boy from an unclean spirit: “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting” (Mk 9:29). Her seven year fasts on bread and beer make her unique in the annals of holiness.
Reluctantly Cloistered
Lutgarde’s first attempt at monastic life was anything but fervent. She went to the monastery dragging her feet, more resigned to the cloistered life than committed to it. Her marriage dowry had been squandered in unwise business investments, making her unattractive to suitors, at least from the perspective of economic advantage. For Lutgarde, as for so many other women of her time, the cloister represented a socially acceptable alternative to the disgrace of unmarried life in the world. One could always play along with the monastic life if one didn’t want to live it, or so she thought.
Encounter in the Parlour
Lutgarde loved the parlour, a welcome break in the monotony of monastic observance. If her visitors were entertaining and handsome young men, susceptible to the feminine charms that, despite veil and grille, she knew well how to deploy, so much the better. Then everything changed. In a blaze of beauty and of love, Jesus Crucified, the Lord of glory, came to the parlour, revealing Himself to Lutgarde, claiming her heart for Himself, offering her a glimpse and foretaste of “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9).
Conversion
At the age of twenty, a changed Lutgarde embraced the monastic way, consciously, deliberately, generously. Psalm 26 expresses her experience: “Thou hast said, ‘Seek thou my Face.’ My heart says to Thee, ‘Thy Face, O Lord, do I seek’” (Ps 26:8). That one verse expresses the exchange underlying every call to intimacy with Christ. He says, “Seek thou my Face.” I respond, “Thy Face, O Lord, do I seek.” One who perseveres in seeking the Face of Christ is brought ineluctably to knowledge of the secrets of His Sacred Heart.
The Face and the Heart
The Face of Jesus Crucified, perceived in a shocking flash of beauty and of love, impressed Itself upon Lutgarde’s heart. She began to live “hidden in the secret of the Face of the Lord” (cf. Ps 30:21). Psalm 30 contains, in effect, two promises that have given hope to monastics down through the ages: “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy Face. . . . Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle” (Ps 30:21). For Lutgarde, it became clear that she was to live hidden in the Face of Christ and to lodge in the tabernacle of His pierced Heart.
Stability in the Sacred Heart
When Lutgarde’s sisters chose her as abbess, she was driven by the Spirit to seek a life even more hidden in the Face of Christ, to place her stability in His Sacred Heart. She sought admission to the abbey of Aywières where, laying aside the habit of the Black Nuns, she put on the white cowl of Cîteaux, happy to have found a deeper silence, a more hidden solitude . Lutgarde’s silence was virtually complete. The nuns of Aywières spoke French, not Lutgarde’s native Flemish. Despite her efforts, she found the French tongue impossible to master. Living, working, and praying in the midst of her sisters she experienced a loneliness and solitude that she had never known before.
Drawn to the Wound in His Side
Lutgarde’s health was poor. Fevers and poor eyesight, later turning to blindness, made the austere Cistercian observance wearisome and draining. The same Christ who had revealed Himself to her at the beginning of her conversion, waited for her one night in the dormitory, by the door to the staircase leading into the choir. Crucified and bleeding, His gaze met hers. Removing His right arm from the Cross, He drew her mouth to the wound in His side, the wound opened by the soldier’s lance on Calvary. Lutgarde drank, and drank deeply. The daily Eucharist renewed sacramentally her mystical experience of Christ’s pierced Heart. Like the children of Israel, she drank “from the supernatural rock” (1 Cor 10:4), but journeyed in the wilderness nonetheless.
The Mystical Exchange of Hearts
Long hours in choir did little to console her. Her Latin was as poor as her French. Lutgarde’s solitude was complete. The liturgical dialogue with God was as frustrating as dialogue with her sisters. When, in a mysterious visitation, Christ came to Lutgarde, offering her whatever gift of grace she should desire, she asked for the intelligence of the Latin tongue, that she might better understand the Word of God and lift her voice in choral praise. Christ granted her request but, after a few days, Lutgarde began to feel strangely restless, unsatisfied. She hungered for more than the enlightenment of the intelligence. Though Lutgarde’s mind was flooded with the riches of psalms, antiphons, readings and responsories, a painful emptiness, a persistent yearning, throbbed in her heart. With disarming candour she returned to Christ, asking to return His gift, and wondering if she might, just possibly, exchange it for another. “And for what would you exchange it?” Christ asked. “Lord, said Lutgarde, I would exchange it for your Heart.” Christ then reached into Lutgarde and, removing her heart, replaced it with His own, at the same time hiding her heart within His breast. “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ez 36:26). This mystical exchange of hearts signified Lutgarde’s passage into spiritual maturity. The heart, created for love, is satisfied by love alone, a love beyond all understanding.
The Only Safe Place
The road of Lutgarde’s exodus, her particular monastic journey, had been one of loneliness and isolation, of frustration and disappointment until, having given her heart in exchange for the Heart of Christ, she was “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19). Who among us can claim to know the gift that will bring peace, deliver from trouble, and satisfy the longings of the heart? Who among us would presume to know the grace of which he or she stands, at this very moment, most in need? I, for one, would fear to choose. The only safe place in the monastic journey is the Face of Christ, the only stability that never disappoints is in His pierced Heart, the wellspring of undying, eternal, indestructible love.
The Eucharistic Heart of Christ
The love of the pierced Heart of Christ is given us, freely and abundantly, in the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is the exchange, or rather, the communion of hearts, the Heart of Christ in the Church, the heart of the Church in Christ. May the friendship of Saint Lutgarde and the energy of her prayer accompany us into the presence of Christ’s Eucharistic Heart, and remain with us amidst all of life’s changes, chances, and crossings.
Wait on God with patience
Monday, 16 June 2014 08:40
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The Beginning of a Friendship
How did I first come to know Marie-Adèle Garnier? (See the previous entry for details about her life.) I was introduced to her by Blessed Columba Marmion! In order to reconstruct the genesis of our “friendship” — for one can have a friendship with the saints in heaven — I must return to my first exposure to monastic life in 1969.
Young Men and the Books They Read
I discovered Abbot Columba Marmion’s writings when I was fifteen years old. I was visiting Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Father Marius Granato, O.C.S.O., charged at that time with helping young men — even very young men — seek God, put Christ, the Ideal of the Monk into my hands. He even let me take the precious green-covered volume home with me. With all the ardour of my fifteen years I devoured it. No book had ever spoken to my heart in quite the same way.
My Spiritual Father
I read and re-read Christ, the Ideal of the Monk. At fifteen one is profoundly marked by what one reads. The impressions made on a soul at that age determine the course of one’s life. As I pursued my desire to seek God, I relied on Dom Marmion. I chose him not only as my monastic patron, but also as my spiritual father, my intercessor, and my guide.
Dom Denis Huerre, O.S.B., in his biography of Père Muard, the founder of the Abbey of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire, discusses Père Muard’s extraordinary spiritual kinship with Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. (She is, in fact, the secondary patron of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire.) Dom Denis concludes that it is not we who choose the particular saints with whom we desire to cultivate a special friendship; it is, rather, these particular saints who choose us. This, I am convinced is part of God’s plan for the holiness of each one.
Spiritual Affinities
I became an avid reader of everything written by or about Abbot Marmion. In one of these books I encountered Marie-Adèle Garnier, Mother Mary of St. Peter, the foundress of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Tyburn, O.S.B. The little bit I read about her was very compelling: her focus on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and on adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist, her love of the Mass and the Divine Office, and her profound attachment to the Church. We were, without any doubt, united by a certain spiritual affinity.
Dom Marmion’s Letters
Blessed Marmion’s Letters of Spiritual Direction, edited by Dom Raymond Thibaut under the title Union With God, contain several pages of the Abbot’s correspondance with Mother Mary of St. Peter. Among other things, Dom Marmion wrote:
“The very real imperfections which you confess to me do not make me doubt the reality of the grace you receive. God is the Supreme Master, and He leaves you these weaknesses in order that you may see that these great graces do not come from you, and are not granted to you on account of your virtues, but on account of your misery. You are a member of Jesus Christ, and the Father truly gives to His Son what He gives to His weak and miserable member. Do not be astonished, do not be discouraged when you fall into a fault, but draw from the Heart of your Spouse — for all His riches are yours — the grace and virtue that are wanting to you.”
Saint Luke Kirby and Mother St. Thomas More Wakerley
In 1972, during my frightfully precocious initial experience of traditional Benedictine life, I wrote to the Tyburn Benedictines for the first time. (In photos from that period I am a very thin bespectacled 20 year old, looking rather like a young Pius XII in a Benedictine habit!) My purpose in writing to Tyburn was to learn more about Mother Mary of St. Peter, and also to request information on Saint Luke Kirby, one of the Tyburn martyrs whose surname I bear. I received a lovely reply written in what appeared to be a frail and trembling hand: a letter from Mother M. St. Thomas More Wakerley. Mother St. Thomas More sent me the information I had requested on Saint Luke Kirby as well as the red-covered biography of Mother Mary of St. Peter by Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B. The book was re-edited in 2006 by Saint Michael’s Abbey Press.
Friends of the Sacred Heart
I read and re-read the book, finding that Marie-Adèle Garnier and I moved, so to speak, within the same constellation of mysteries: the Heart of Jesus, the Eucharist, the Sacred Liturgy, the Priesthood, and the Church. Blessed Abbot Marmion’s writings continued to nourish me, as did those of Saint Gertrude the Great and other Benedictine and Cistercian friends of the Sacred Heart. Dom Ursmer de Berlière’s book (in the “Pax” Collection) on the Sacred Heart within the monastic tradition added kindling to the fire. At about the same time, I read the life of other Benedictine mystics of the Sacred Heart: among them were Père Jean-Baptiste Muard, founder of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire, Mère Jeanne Deleloë, and Blessed Giovanna Bonomo.
Stability in the Heart of Jesus
In 1975, having wisely taken time out from the cloister, I made a pilgrimage to the cradle of Benedictine life at Subiaco. There I met Dom Nathanaël, a wise old monk who had been Master of Novices at La-Pierre-Qui-Vire. When I asked him for counsel concerning my monastic journey, he said to me, “Frère, tu dois faire ta stabilité dans le Coeur de Jésus — Brother, you must make your stability in the Heart of Jesus.” These words were to sustain me in the years ahead. I know that Marie-Adèle Garnier would have understood them perfectly.
The Open Heart of Jesus Crucified
On August 4, 1979, together with Father Jacob, now a Dominican, and another brother, now a Franciscan, I went on pilgrimage to Montmartre in Paris. There, in the crypt of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, at the altar of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and trusting in her intercession, we consecrated ourselves to the Heart of Jesus and to His designs on our life. Within me the desire was growing for a simple Benedictine life, characterized by the worthy celebration of the Divine Office and by adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist. The wounded Side of Our Lord exercised a supernatural power of attraction over me. The text of our Act of Consecration was printed on a leaflet with a drawing depicting a monk being drawn to the open Heart of Jesus Crucified. The attraction to the pierced Heart of Jesus and to His Holy Face was constant and undeniable.
Humble Thy Heart and Endure
I often recalled the text from the second chapter of Ecclesiasticus read at a Mass celebrated by a Dominican friend when first I set out on my monastic journey:
Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.
Humble thy heart, and endure: incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding: and make not haste in the time of clouds.
Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God, and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end.
Take all that shall be brought upon thee: and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience.
For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.
Believe God, and he will recover thee: and direct thy way, and trust in him. Keep his fear, and grow old therein.
Ye that fear the Lord, wait for his mercy: and go not aside from him, lest ye fall.
Ye that fear the Lord, believe him: and your reward shall not be made void.
Ye that fear the Lord, hope in him: and mercy shall come to you for your delight.
Ye that fear the Lord, love him, and your hearts shall be enlightened.
My children behold the generations of men: and know ye that no one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded.
For who hath continued in his commandment, and hath been forsaken? or who hath called upon him, and he despised him?
For God is compassionate and merciful, and will forgive sins in the day of tribulation: and he is a protector to all that seek him in truth.
Woe to them that are of a double heart and to wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner that goeth on the earth two ways.
Woe to them that are fainthearted, who believe not God: and therefore they shall not be protected by him.
Woe to them that have lost patience, and that have forsaken the right ways, and have gone aside into crooked ways.
And what will they do, when the Lord shall begin to examine?
They that fear the Lord, will not be incredulous to his word: and they that love him, will keep his way.
They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to him: and they that love him, shall be filled with his law.
They that fear the Lord, will prepare their hearts, and in his sight will sanctify their souls.
They that fear the Lord, keep his Commandments, and will have patience even until his visitation,
Saying: If we do not penance, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men.
For according to his greatness, so also is his mercy with him.
The Journey Continues
My monastic journey continued in the light (and often in the mysterious obscurity) of the Eucharistic Face of Christ, and with the passing years I came to understand more and more that the only enduring stability of a monk is in the pierced Heart of Jesus.
There the Lord Hath Commanded Blessing
I warmly invite the readers of Vultus Christi to seek Mother Mary of St. Peter’s intercession. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for friends of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to dwell together in unity. . . . for there the Lord hath commanded blessing, and life forevermore (cf. Ps 132:1, 3).
38. You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;
39. But I say to you, That you resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40. And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.
41. And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him twain.
42. Give to him that asks you, and from him that would borrow of you turn not away.
GLOSS. The Lord having taught that we are not to offer injury to our neighbor or irreverence to the Lord, now proceeds to show the Christian should demean himself to those that injure him.
AUG. This law, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, was enacted to repress the flames of mutual hate, and to be a check on their undisciplined spirits. For who when he would take revenge, was ever content to return just so much harm as he had received? Do we not see men who have suffered some trifling hurt, straightway plot murder, thirst for blood, and hardly find evil enough that they can do to their enemies for the satisfying of their rage? To this immeasured and cruel fury the Law puts bounds when it enacts a lex talionis; that is, that whatever wrong or hurt any man has done to another, he should suffer just the same in return. This is not to encourage but to check rage; for it does not rekindle what was extinguished, but hinders the flames already kindled from further spread. It enacts a just retaliation, properly due to him who has suffered the wrong. But that mercy forgives any debt, does not make it unjust that payment had been sought. Since then he sins who seeks an unmeasured vengeance, but he does not sin who desires only a just one; he is therefore further from sin who seeks no retribution at all. I might state it yet thus: It was said to them of old time, You shall not take unequal retaliation; But I say to you, You shall not retaliate; this is a completion of the Law, if in these words something is added to the Law which was wanting to it; yea, rather that which the Law sought to do, namely, to put an end to unequal revenge, is more safely secured when there is no revenge at all.
PSEUDO-CHRYS. For without this command, the commands of the Law could not stand. For if according to the Law we begin all of us to render evil for evil, we shall all become evil, since they do hurt abound. But if according to Christ we resist not evil, though they that are evil be not amended, yet they that are good remain good.
JEROME; Thus our Lord by doing away all retaliation, cuts off the beginnings of sin. So the Law corrects faults, the Gospel removes their occasions.
GLOSS. Or it may be said that the Lord said this, adding somewhat to the righteousness of the old Law.
AUG. For the righteousness of the Pharisees is a less righteousness, not to transgress the measure of equal retribution; and this is the beginning of peace; but perfect peace is to refuse all such retribution. Between that first manner then, which was not according to the Law, to wit, that a greater evil should be returned for a less, and this which the Lord enjoins to make His disciples perfect, to wit, that no evil should be returned for evil, a middle place is held by this, that an equal evil should be returned, which was thus the passage from extremist discord to extremist peace. Whoso then first does evil to another departs furthest from righteousness; and who does not first do any wrong, but when wronged repays with a heavier wrong, has departed somewhat from extreme injustice; he who repays only what he has received, gives up yet something more, for it were but strict right that he whom is the first aggressor should receive a greater hurt than he inflicted. This righteousness thus partly begun, He perfects, who is come to fulfill the Law. The two steps that intervene He leaves to be understood; for there is who does not repay so much, but less; and there is yet above him, he who repays not at all; yet this seems too little to the Lord, if you be not also ready to suffer wrong. Therefore He says not, Render not evil for evil, but, Resist not against evil, not only repay not what is offered to you, but do not resist that it should not be done to you. For thus accordingly He explains that saying, If any man smite you on your right cheek, offer to him the left also. Which as being a high part of mercy is known to those who serve such as they love much; from whom, being morose, or insane, they endure many things, and if it be for their health they offer themselves to endure more. The Lord then, the Physician of souls, teaches His disciples to endure with patience the sicknesses of those for whose spiritual health they should provide. For all wickedness comes of a sickness of the mind; nothing is more innocent than he who is sound and of perfect health in virtue.
ID. The things which are done by the Saints in the New Testament profit for examples of understanding those Scriptures which are modeled into the form of precepts. Thus we read in Luke; Whoso smites you on the one cheek, turn to him the other also (Luke 6:29). Now there is no example of patience more perfect than that of the Lord; yet He, when he was smitten, said not, 'Behold the other cheek,' but, If I have spoken amiss, accuse me wherein it is amiss; but if well, why do you smite me (John 18:23)? hereby showing us that that turning of the other cheek should be in the heart.
ID. For the Lord was ready not only to be smitten on the other cheek for the salvation of men, but to be crucified with His whole body. It may be asked, What does the right cheek expressly signify? As the face is that whereby any man is known, to be smitten on the face is according to the Apostle to be condemned and despised. But as But as we cannot say, 'right face,' and 'left face,' and yet we have a name twofold, one before God, and one before the world, it is distributed as it were into the right cheek, and left cheek, that whoever of Christ's disciples is despised for that he is a Christian, may be ready to be yet more despised for any of this world's honors that he may have. All things wherein we suffer any wrong are divided into two kinds, of which one is what cannot be restored, the other what may be restored. In that kind which cannot be restored, we are wont to seek the solace of revenge. For what does it boot if when smitten you smite again, is the hurt done to your body thereby repaid to you? But the mind swollen with rage seeks such assuagements.
PSEUDO-CHRYS. Or has your return blow at all restrained him from striking you again? It has rather roused him to another blow. For anger is not checked by meeting anger, but is only more irritated.
AUG. Whence the Lord judges that others' weakness should rather be born with compassion, than that our own should be soothed by others' pain. For that retribution which tends to correction is not here forbidden, for such is indeed a part of mercy; nor does such intention hinder that he, who seeks to correct another, is not at the same time ready himself to take more at his hands. But it is required that he should inflict the punishment to whom the power is given by the course of things, and with such a mind as the father has to a child in correcting him whom it is impossible he should hate. And holy men have punished some sins with death, in order that a wholesome fear might be struck into the living, and so that not his death, but the likelihood of increase of his sin had he lived, was the hurt of the criminal. Thus Elias punished many with death, and when the disciples would take example from him, they were rebuked by the Lord, who did not censure this example of the Prophet, but their ignorant use of it, seeing them to desire the punishment not for correction's sake, but angry hate. But after He had inculcated love of their neighbor and had given them the Holy Spirit, there wanted not instances of such vengeance, as Ananias and his wife who fell down dead at the words of Peter, and the Apostle Paul delivered some to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Yet do some, with a kind of blind opposition, rage against the temporal punishments of the Old Testament, not knowing with what mind they were inflicted.
ID. But who that is of sober mind would say to kings, "It is nothing of your concern who will live religiously, or who profanely"? It cannot even be said to them, that it is not their concern who will live chastely, or who unchastely. It is indeed better that men should be led to serve God by right teaching than by penalties; yet has it benefited many, as experience has approved to us, to be first coerced by pain and fear, that they might be taught after, or to be made to conform in deed to what they had learned in words. The better men indeed are led of love, but the more part of men are wrought on by fear. Let them learn in the case of the Apostle Paul, how Christ first constrained, and after taught him.
ID.Therefore in this kind of injuries which are wont to rouse vengeance Christians will observe such a mean, that hate shall not be caused by the injuries they may receive, and yet wholesome correction be not foregone by Him who has right of either counsel or power.
JEROME; Mystically interpreted, when we are smitten on the right cheek, He said not, offer to him the left, but the other; for the righteous has not a left. That is, if a heretic has smitten us in disputation, and would wound us in a right hand doctrine, let him be met with another testimony from Scripture.
AUG. The other kind of injuries are those in which full restitution can be made, of which there are two kinds: one relates to money, the other to work; of the first of these it is He speaks when He continues, Whoever will sue you for your coat, let him have your cloak likewise. As by the cheek are denoted such injuries of the wicked as admit of no restitution but revenge, so by this similitude of the garments is denoted such injury as admits restitution. And this, as the former, is rightly taken of preparation of the heart, not of the show of the outward action. And what is commanded respecting our garments, is to be observed in all things that by any right we call our own in worldly property. For if the command be expressed in these necessary articles of life, how much more does it hold in the case of superfluities and luxuries? And when He says, He who will sue you, He clearly intends to include everything for which it is possible that we should be sued. It may be made a question whether it is to be understood of slaves, for a Christian ought not to possess his slave on the same footing as his horse; though it might be that the horse was worth the more money. And if your slave have a milder master in you than he would have in him who seeks to take him from you, I do not know that he ought to be given up as lightly as your coat.
PSEUDO-CHRYS. For it were an unworthy thing that a believer should stand in his cause before an unbelieving judge. Or if one who is a believer, though (as he must be) a worldly man, though he should have reverenced you for the worthiness of the faith, sues you because the cause is a necessary one, you will lose the worthiness of Christ for the business of the world. Further, every lawsuit irritates the heart and excites bad thoughts; for when you see dishonesty or bribery employed against you, you hasten to support your own cause by like means, though originally, you might have intended nothing of the sort.
AUG. The Lord here forbids his disciples to have lawsuits with others for worldly property. Yet as the Apostle allows such kind of causes to be decided between brethren, and before arbiters who are brethren, but utterly disallows them without the Church, it is manifest what is conceded to infirmity as pardonable.
GREG. There are, who are so far to be endured, as they rob us of our worldly goods; but there are whom we ought to hinder, and that without breaking the law of charity, not only that we may not be robbed of what is ours, but lest they by robbing others destroy themselves. We ought to fear much more for the men who rob us, than to be eager to save the inanimate things they take from us. When peace with our neighbor is banished the heart on the matter of worldly possessions, it is plain that our estate is more loved than our neighbor.
AUG. The third kind of wrongs, which is in the matter of labor, consists of both such as admit restitution, and such as do not - or with or without revenge - for he who forcibly presses a man's service, and makes him give his aid against his will, can either be punished for his crime, or return the labor. In this kind of wrongs then, the Lord teaches that the Christian mind is most patient, and prepared to endure yet more than is offered; If a man constrain you to go with him a mile, go with him yet another two. This likewise is meant not so much of actual service with your feet , as of readiness of mind.
CHRYS.The word here used signifies to drag unjustly, without cause, and with insult.
AUG. Let us suppose it therefore said, Go with him other two, that the number three might be completed; by which number perfection is signified; that whoever does this might remember that he is fulfilling perfect righteousness. For which reason he conveys this precept under three examples, and in this third example, he adds a twofold measure to the one single measure, that the threefold number may be complete. Or we may so consider as though in enforcing this duty, He had begun with what was easiest to bear, and had advanced gradually. For finest He commanded that when the right cheek was smitten we should turn the other also; therein showing ourselves ready to endure another wrong less than that you have already received. Secondly, to him that would take your coat, He bids you part with your cloak (or garment, as some copies read), which is either just as great a loss, or perhaps a little greater). In the third, He doubles the additional wrong which He would have us ready to endure. And seeing it is a small thing not to hurt unless you further show kindness, He adds, To him that asks of you, give.
PSEUDO-CHRYS.Because wealth is not ours but God's, God would have us stewards of His wealth. and not lords.
JEROME; If we understand this only of alms, it cannot stand with the estate of the most part of men who are poor; even the rich if they have been always giving, will not be able to continue always to give.
AUG. Therefore, He says not, 'Give all things to him that asks, but, Give to every one that asks; that you should only give what you can give honestly and rightly. For what if one ask for money to employ in oppressing the innocent man? What if he ask your consent to unclean sin? We must give then only what will hurt neither ourselves or others, as far as man can judge; and when you have refused an inadmissible request, that you may not send away empty him that asked, show the righteousness of your refusal; and such correction of the unlawful petitioner will often be a better gift than the granting of his suit.
ID. For with more benefit is food taken from the hunger, if certainty of provision causes him to neglect righteousness, than that food should be supplied to him that he may consent to a deed of violence and wrong.
JEROME; But it may be understood of the wealth of doctrine: wealth which never fails but the more of it is given away, the more it abounds.
AUG. That He commands, And from him that would borrow of you, turn not away, must be referred to the mind; for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9:7). And everyone that receives indeed borrows, though it is not he that shall pay, but God who restores to the merciful many fold. Or, if you like to understand by borrowing, only taking with promise to repay, we must understand the Lord's command as embracing both these kinds of affording aid; whether we give outright, or lend to receive again. And of this last kind of showing mercy it is well-said, Turn not away, that is, do not be therefore backward to lend, as though, because man shall repay you, therefore God shall not; for what you do by God's command cannot be without fruit.
PSEUDO-CHRYS. Christ bids us lend but not on usury; for he who gives on such terms does not bestow his own, but takes of another; he looses from one chain to bind with many, and gives not for God's righteousness sake, but for his own gain. For money taken on usury is like the bite of an asp; as the asp's poison secretly consumes the limbs, so usury turns all our possessions into debt.
AUG. Some object that this command of Christ is altogether inconsistent with civil life in Commonwealths; who, say they, would suffer, when he could hinder it, the pillage of his estate by an enemy; or would not repay the evil suffered by a plundered province of Rome on the plunderers according to the rights of war? But these precepts of patience are to be observed in readiness of the heart, and that mercy, not to return evil for evil, must be always fulfilled by the will. Yet must we often use a merciful sharpness in dealing with the headstrong. And in this way, if the earthly commonwealth will keep the Christian commandments, even war will not be waged without good charities, to the establishing among the vanquished peaceful harmony of godliness and righteousness. For that victory is beneficial to him from whom it snatches license to sin; since nothing is more unfortunate for sinners, than the good fortune of their sins, which nourishes an impunity that brings punishment after it, and an evil will is strengthened, as it were some internal enemy.
Catena Aurea Matthew 5
