Sunday, May 14 : Saint John Chrysostom

“You became imitators of our divine Lord,” says Paul. How? “Receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit” (1Thes 1,6). And not only in affliction but in the midst of afflictions and sufferings without number. You can confirm this from the Acts of the Apostles. There we see how persecution was stirred up against them and how their enemies denounced them to the magistrates and aroused the whole town. They were in affliction yet you cannot say they remained faithful with anguish and groaning. No! It was with great joy. The apostles had set them an example: “Rejoicing they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name of Christ” (Acts 5,41). Now here is something truly admirable! It is already a great deal to bear affliction patiently, but to rejoice in it is to show oneself above human nature and to possess nothing more than a passionless body, so to speak. But in what way were they imitators of Christ? In the very same thing he himself suffered without complaining but with joy. For it was by his own will that he found himself among such afflictions. It was for our sake that he humbled himself, going to meet the spitting, buffeting, and even the cross. And he so greatly rejoiced in this that he called it his glory. “Father,” he said, “glorify me” (Jn 17,5).

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team