• Passion Wednesday

  On Being Burried Spiritually

  The sepulchre is a figure by which is signified the contemplation of heavenly things. So, St. Gregory, commenting on the words of Job (iii. 22), They rejoice exceedingly when they have found the grave, says, “As in the grave the body is hidden away when dead, so in divine contemplation there lies concealed the soul, dead to the world. There, at rest from the world’s clamour, it lies, in a three days burial through, as it were, its triple immersion in baptism. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy face from the disturbance of men (Ps. xxx. 21). Those in great trouble, tormented with the hates of men, enter in spirit the presence of God and they are at rest.”

  Three things are required for this spiritual burial in God, namely, that the mind be perfected by the virtues, that the mind be all bright and shining with purity, and that it be wholly dead to this world. All these things are shown figuratively in the burial of Christ.

  The first is shown in St. Mark s Gospel where we read how Mary Magdalen anointed Our Lord for His burial by anticipation, as it were. She hath done what she could: she is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial (Mark xiv. 8). The ointment of precious spikenard (ibid, iii) stands for the virtues, for it is a thing very precious, and in this life nothing is more precious than the virtues. The soul that wishes to be holy and to be buried in divine contemplation, must first, then, anoint itself by the exercise of the virtues. Job (v. 26) says, Thou shalt enter into the grave in abundance–and the Gloss explains the grave as meaning here, “divine contemplation”–as a heap of wheat is brought in its season, and the explanation given in the Gloss is that eternal contemplation is the prize of a life of action, and therefore it must be that the perfect, first of all, exercise their souls in the virtues and then, afterwards, bury them in the barn where all quiet is gathered.

  The second of the three things required is also noted in St. Mark, where we read (xv. 46) that Joseph bought a winding sheet, that is, a sheet of fine linen, which is only brought to its dazzling whiteness with great labour. Hence it signifies that brightness of the soul, which also is not perfectly attained except with great labour. He that is just let him be justified still (Apoc. xxii. 11). Let us walk in newness of life (Rom. vi. 4), going from good to better, through the justice inaugurated by faith to the glory for which we hope. Therefore it is that men, bright with a spotless interior life, should be buried in the sepulchre of divine contemplation. St. Jerome, commenting on the words, Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Matt. v. 8), says, ” The clean Lord is seen by the clean of heart.”

  The third point for consideration is given by St. John where, in his gospel (xix. 30), he writes, Nicodemus also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. This hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes, brought to preserve the dead body, symbolises that perfect mortification of the external senses, the means by which the spirit, dead to the world, is preserved from the vices that would corrupt it. Though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day (2 Cor. iv. 16), which is as much as to say the inward man is most thoroughly purified from vices by the fire of tribulation.

  Therefore man’s soul must first, with Christ, become dead to this world, and then, afterwards, be buried with Him in the hiding place of divine contemplation. St. Paul says, You are dead with Christ, to the things that, are vain and fleeting, and your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. iii. 3).

Saint for the Day

• March 24 – St. Simon, St. William Child Martyrs

  March 24

  St. Simon, Infant Martyr

    “Hail, flowers of the martyrs!” the Church sings in her Office of the Holy Innocents, who were the first to die for Christ; and in every age mere children and infants have gloriously confess His name.  In 1472, the Jews in the city of Trent determined to vent their hate against the crucified by slaying a Christian child at the coming Passover, and Tobias, one of their number, was deputed to entrap a victim.  He found a bright, smiling boy named Simon playing outside his home, with no one guarding him.  Tobias patted the little fellow’s cheek, and coaxed him to take his hand.  The boy, who was not two years old, did so; but he began to call and cry for his mother when he found himself being led from home.  Then Tobias gave him a bright coin to look at, and with many kind caresses silenced his grief, and conducted him securely to his house.  At midnight on Holy Thursday, the work of butchery began.  Having gagged his mouth, they held his arms in the form of a cross, while they pierced his tender body with awls and bodkins in blasphemous mockery of the sufferings of Jesus Christ.  After an hour’s torture the little martyr lifted his eyes to heaven and gave up his innocent soul.  The Jews cast his body into the river; but their crime was discovered and punished, while the holy relics were enshrined in St. Peter’s Church at Trent, where they have worked many miracles.  

  William of Norwich

  William of Norwich is another of these child martyrs.  His parents were simple country folk, but his mother was taught by a vision to expect a Saint in her son.  As a boy he fasted thrice a week and prayed constantly, and he was only an apprentice twelve years of age, at a tanner’s in Norwich, when he won his crown.  A little before Easter, A.D 1157, he was enticed into a Jew’s house, and was there gagged, bound, and crucified in hatred of Christ.  Five years passed before the body was found, when it was buried as a saintly relic in the cathedral churchyard.  A rose-tree planted hard by flowered miraculously in midwinter, and all manner of sick persons were healed of their diseases at St. William’s shrine. Reflection—Learn from the infant martyrs that, however weak you may be, you still can suffer for Christ’s sake, and by suffering, win your crown.        

  Taken from the “Pictorial Lives of the Saints: with Reflections for Everyday in the year

Sunday Sermon

• Passion Sunday ~ False Accusations

  

  Under the false accusations of the Jews how calm and self-possessed our Lord remains! He does not return passion for passion, anger for anger, accusations for accusations, violence for violence; but he meets calumny with the assertion of truth, and confounds his enemies by humility and meekness. They accuse him of sin; with the sublime simplicity of a pure conscience he dares them to convince him of sin. They call him names: “Thou art a Samaritan”; to so evident a falsehood he deigns no reply. Blinded by anger, they accuse him of being possessed: “Thou hast a devil”; a simple denial, “I have not a devil,” the leaving of his own glory to his Father, the assertion of his divine mission, is the answer to the blasphemous calumny. “Now we know thou hast a devil,” repeat they, waxing more passionate; but, unimpassioned, Jesus rises above their rage to the calm heights of the Godhead, and affirms his eternal generation. Finally, losing all control of themselves, they take up stones to cast at him; but he quietly goes out of the temple and hides himself, for his hour—the hour when he would bear in silence the accusations and indignities of man, and allow himself to be led to slaughter—had not yet come.

  In this our Saviour teaches us how we should behave when the passions of others fall upon us and we are made the butt of accusations, just or unjust. In such circumstances what is generally your conduct? By no means Christian, I am afraid, but very worldly; for the world counts it true valor and justice to give tit for tat, to take tooth for tooth and eye for eye. Do you not give back as good—and often worse—than you get? Prudence, let alone Christianity, should dictate to you quite another conduct. Your counter-accusations do but strengthen and confirm the calumny; they allow it to stand, “You’re another” and “you’re no better” are poor arguments to clear yourselves. It’s a flank movement that does not cover your position, a feint that does not save you from attack. The answering of a question by asking another question is a smart trick, but no answer. A calm denial, if you could make it, or dignified silence would do the work more surely and thoroughly. And so the fight of words goes on in true Billingsgate style; to and fro they fly thick and hot, hotter and hotter as passion rises on both sides. “One word brings on another,” until white heat is reached and all control of temper lost. Then, as the Jews ended with stones, so you perhaps come to more serious passion than mere words. The result is quarrels, deadly feuds, bodily injuries, and worse, may be—bloodshed and the jail. A cow kicked a lantern in a stable, and Chicago was on fire for days. Some frivolous accusation that you pick up, while you should let it fall, starts within you a fire of anger that makes a ruin of your whole spiritual life and throws disorder all around you; families are divided; wife and husband sulk, quarrel, live a “cat and dog” life; friends are separated, connections broken. Peace flies from your homes, your social surroundings, your own hearts; the very horrors of hell are around you. Christian charity has been wounded to death, and the slightest of blows, the lightest of shafts has done it. All for the want of a little patience and self-possession! How often we hear it said: “Oh! I have such a bad temper; I’m easily riz, God forgive me! I’ve a bad passion entirely.” Well, my dear brethren, learn from this Gospel how you should control yourselves, how you should possess your souls in patience. One-half the sins of the world would be done away with, if only the lesson of this Gospel were laid to heart and put into practice. What is the lesson?

  Firstly, never seek self-praise in self-justification. Jesus turns aside the calumny of the Jews, but leaves the glorifying of himself in the hands of his Father, “who seeketh and judgeth.” Secondly, pay no attention to accusations that are absurd, evidently untrue, and frivolous. When Jesus is called names and is made out to be what every one knows he was not—”a Samaritan”—he makes no answer. Thirdly, if serious calumny, calculated to injure your usefulness in your duties and state of life, assail you, it then becomes your right, and sometimes your duty, to repel the calumny, as Jesus did when he was accused of “having a devil.” But in this case your self-justification, like that of our Saviour, should ever be calm, dignified, and Christian. It should be a defence, never an attack. The true Christian parries, he does not give the thrust; he shields himself from the arrows of malice, he does not shoot them back. Superior to revenge, he pities enemies for the evil they do; he forgives them and prays for them, as our Lord has commanded. This is Christian charity, and Christian humility as well. But as it avails little to know what we should do, if we have not God’s grace to enable us to do it, let us often say, especially in temptations to impatience: “O Jesus, meek and humble of heart! make me like unto thee.”

  Five Minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year 
  Volume 1
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