1 SEPTEMBER – FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Epistle – Galatians v. 25‒26, vi. 1‒10

Brethren, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be made desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. And if a man be overtaken in any fault, you, who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens; and so you will fulfil the law of Christ. For if any man think himself to be some thing, whereas he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let every one prove his own work, and so he will have glory in himself only, and not in another. For everyone will bear his own burden. And let him that is instructed in the word, communicate to him that instructs him, in all good things. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man will sow, those also will he reap. For he that sows in his flesh, of the flesh also will reap corruption. But he that sows in the spirit, of the spirit will reap life everlasting. And in doing good, let us not fail. For in due time we will reap, not failing. Therefore, while we have time, let us work good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Holy Church resumes the lesson of Saint Paul where she left it last Sunday. The Spiritual life, the life produced in our souls by the Holy Spirit in place of the former life of the flesh — this is still the subject of the Apostle’s teaching. When the flesh has been subdued, we must take care and not suppose that the structure of our perfection is completed. Not only must the combat be kept up after the victory under penalty of losing all we have won, but we must also be on the watch lest one or other of the heads of the triple concupiscence take advantage of the soul’s efforts being elsewhere directed to raise itself against us and sting us all the more terribly, because it is left to do just as it pleases. The Apostle warns us here of vain-glory, and well he may, for vain-glory is more than other enemies always in a menacing attitude, ready to infuse its subtle poison even into acts of humility and penance. Hence, the Christian who is desirous to serve God, and not his own gratification, by the virtues he practises, must keep up a specially active vigilance over this passion.

Just let us think, for a moment, on the madness that culprit would be guilty of who, having his sentence to death commuted for a severe flogging, should take pride in the stripes left on his body by the whip! May this madness never be ours! It would seem, however, as though it were far from being impossible, seeing how the Apostle, immediately after his telling us to mortify our flesh, bids us take heed of vainglory. In fact, we are not safe on this subject excepting inasmuch as the outward humiliation inflicted by us on our body has this for its principle, that our soul should voluntarily humble herself at the sight of her miseries. The ancient Philosophers, too, had their maxims about the restraint of the senses. But those among them who practised those admirably worded maxims found them a stepping-stone for their pride to mount up mountains high in self-conceit. It could not be otherwise, for they were totally devoid of anything like the sentiments which actuated our Fathers in the faith who, when they clad themselves in sackcloth and prostrated on the ground (1 Paralipomenon xxi. 16), cried out from the heart-felt conviction of the miseries of human nature: “Have mercy on me, God, according to your great mercy, for I was conceived in iniquities, and my sin is ever before me! (Psalm l.)

To practise bodily mortification with a view to get the reputation of being saints, is it not doing what Saint Paul here calls solving in the flesh, that, in due time, that is, on the day when the intentions of our hearts will be made manifest (1 Corinthians iv. 5) we may reap not life and glory everlasting, but endless disgrace and shame? Among the works of the flesh mentioned in last Sunday’s Epistle, we found contentions, dissensions and jealousies (Galatians v. 19‒21), all of which are the ordinary outcome of this vain-glory against which the Apostle is now warning us. The production of such rotten fruits would be an unmistakeable sign that the heavenly sap of grace had gone from our souls, and, that in its stead there had been brought the fermentation of sin; and that now, having made ourselves slaves, as of old, we must tremble because of the penalties threatened by God’s law. God is not mocked, and as to the confidence which generous fidelity of love imparts to those who live by the Spirit — it would, in the case we are now supposing, be but a hypocritical counterfeit of the holy liberty of the children of God. They alone are his children, whom the Holy Spirit leads (Romans viii. 14), and leads them in charity (Galatians iv. 13). Those others are led on by the flesh, and such cannot please God (Romans viii. 8).

If, on the contrary, we would have an equally unmistakeable sign which is quite compatible with the obscurities of faith, that we are really in possession of divine Union, let us not take occasion from the sight of other’s defects and faults to be puffed up with pride, but rather, from the consideration of our own miseries, be indulgent to every one else. If others fall, let us give them a helping and prudent hand. Let us bear one another’s burdens along the road of life and then, having thus fulfilled the law of Christ, we will know (and oh the joy there is in such knowing!) that we abide in Him, and He in us (1 John iv. 13). These most thrilling words which were made use of by our Lord to express the future intimacy He would have with whomsoever should eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood in Holy Communion (1 John vi. 57), Saint John, who had told them to us, takes them and uses them in his Epistles, and (let us mark the deep mystery of the application) applies them to whoever in the Holy Ghost observes the great commandment of loving his neighbour (1 John iii. 23, 24; iv. 12, 13).

Would to God we could ever have ringing in our ears the saying of the Apostle: “While we have time, let us work good to all men!” For the day will come, and it is not so very far off, when the Angel, carrying the mysterious Book, and having one foot on the earth and the other on the sea, will make his mighty voice as that of a lion he heard through the universe and, with his hand lifted up towards Heaven, will swear by Him that lives forever and ever, that time “will be no more!” (Apocalypse x. 1‒6) Then will man reap with joy what he will have sown in tears (Psalm cxxv. 5) he failed not, he grew not weary, of doing good while in the dreary land of his exile — still less will he ever tire of the everlasting harvest, which is to be in the living light of the Eternal Day.

Gospel – Luke vii. 11‒16

At that time, Jesus went into a city that is called Naim; and there went with Him His disciples, and a great multitude. And when He came near the gate of the city, behold a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow: and a great multitude of the city was with her. Whom when the Lord had seen, being moved with mercy towards her, He said to her: “Weep not.” And He came near and touched the bier. And they that carried it, stood still. And He said: “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And he that was dead, sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother. And there came a fear on them all: and they glorified God, saying: “A great prophet is risen up among us,” and, “God has visited His people.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This is the second time during the Year, holy Church offers this Gospel to our consideration. We cannot be surprised at this, for the Fathers selected by her as its interpreters tell us, on both of these occasions, that the afflicted mother, who follows her son to the grave is the Church herself. The first time we saw her under this symbol of a mother mourning for her child was in the penitential season of Lent. She was then, by her fasting and prayer (united as those were with her Jesus’ sufferings) preparing the resurrection of such of our brethren as were dead in sin. Their resurrection was realised and we had them, in all the fullness of their new life, seated, side by side with us at the Paschal Table. What exquisite joy on that Feast of Feasts inundated the Mother’s heart as she thus shared in the triumphant gladness of her divine Spouse! He, her Jesus was, by His one Resurrection, twice over the conqueror of death: He rose from the grave, and He gave back the child to the Mother. The Disciples of this Risen Lord who follow Him closely by their observance of the evangelical counsels, yes, they, and the whole multitude that associated themselves with the Church, glorified Jesus for His wonderful works, and sang the praises of that God who thus vouchsafed to visit His people.

The Mother ceased to weep. But since then the Spouse has again left her to return to His Father. She has resumed her widow’s weeds, and her sufferings are continually adding to the already well-near insupportable torture of her exile. And, from where these sufferings? From the relapses of so many of those ungrateful children of hers to whom she had given a second birth (Galatians iv. 12) and at the cost of such pains and tears! The countless cares she then spent over her sinners, and that new life she gave them in the presence of her dying Jesus, all this made each of the penitents during the Great Week as though he were the only son of that Mother. What an intense grief, says Saint John Chrysostom, that so loving a Mother should see them relapsing after the communion of such mysteries into sin which kills them! “Spare me,” as she may well say, in the words which the holy Doctor puts into the Apostle’s mouth, “Spare me! No other child, once born into this world, ever made his Mother suffer the pangs of childbirth over again!”

To repair the relapse of a sinner costs her no less travail, than the giving birth to such as had never believed.

And if we compare these times of ours with the period when sainted Pastors made her words be respected all over the world, is there a single Christian who is still faithful to the Church who does not feel impelled, by such contrast, to be more and more devoted to a Mother so abandoned as she now is? Let us listen to the eloquent words of Saint Laurence Justinian on this subject. “Then,” says he, “all resplendent with the mystic jewels with which the Bridegroom had beautified her on the wedding-day, she thrilled with joy at the increase of her children, both in merit and number. She urged them to ascend to ever greater heights. She offered them to God, she raised them in her arms up towards Heaven. Obeyed by them, she was, in all truth, the mother of fair love and fear (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 24). She was beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array (Canticles vi. 9). She stretched out her branches as the turpentine tree, and beneath their shadow she sheltered them she had begotten against the heat, and the tempest, and the rain. So long, then, as she could, she laboured, feeding at her breasts all those she was able to assemble. But her zeal, great as it was, has redoubled from the time she perceived that many, yea very many, had lost their first fervour. Now for many years, she is mourning at the sight of how, each day, her Creator is offended, how great are the losses she sustains, and how so many of her children suffer death. She that was once robed in scarlet, has put on mourning garments. Her fragrance is no longer felt by the world. Instead of a golden girdle, she has but a cord, and instead of the rich ornament of her breast, she is vested in haircloth (Isaias iii. 24) Her lamentations and tears are ceaseless. Ceaseless is her prayer striving if, by some way, she may make the present as beautiful as in times past. And yet, as though it were impossible for her to call back that lovely past, she seems wearied at such supplication. The word of the prophet has come true: They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together. There is none that cloth good, no, not one!.. (Psalm xiii. 3) The manifold sins committed by the Church’s children against the divine precepts show that they who so sin are rotten members, members alien to the body of Christ. Nevertheless, the Church forgets not that she gave them birth in the laver of salvation. She forgets not the promises they then made to renounce the devil, and the pomps of the world, and all sin. Therefore does she weep over their fall, being their true mother and never losing the hope of winning their resurrection by her tears. What a flood of tears is thus every day shed before God! What fervent prayers does not this spotless virgin send by the ministry of the holy Angels up to Christ who is the salvation of sinners! In the secret of hearts, in lonely retreats, as well as in her public temples, she cries out to the divine mercy that they who are now buried in the filth of vice, may be all restored to life. Who will tell the joy of her heart when she receives back living, the children she mourned over as dead? If the conversion of sinners is such a joy to Heaven (Luke xv. 7), what must it be to such a Mother? According to the multitude of the sorrows of her heart so will be the consolations, giving joy to her soul (Psalm xciii. 19).

It is the duty of us Christians who, by God’s mercy, have been preserved from the general decay, to share in the anguish of our Mother, the Church. We should humbly but fervently co-operate with her in all her zealous endeavours to reclaim our fallen brethren. We surely can never be satisfied with not being of the number of those senseless sons who are a sorrow to their Mother (Proverbs xvii. 25), and despise the labour of her that bore them (Proverbs xxx. 17). Had we not the Holy Spirit to tell us how he that honours his Mother, is as one that lays up to himself a treasure? The thought of what our birth cost her (Ecclesiasticus iii. 5) would force us to do everything that lies in our power to comfort her. She is the dear Bride of the Incarnate Word, and our souls, too, aspire to union with Him. Let us prove that such Union is really ours by doing as the Church does, that is, by showing in our acts the one thought, the one love, which the divine Spouse always imparts to souls that enjoy holy intimacy with Him, because there is nothing He Himself has so much at heart — the thought of bringing the whole world to give glory to His Eternal Father, and the love of procuring salvation for sinners.