Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar

We shall be seated at table in eternity. I would not dare to say this if it had not been the Lord who promised it. He promises a great reward to his servants, for her says: “he will have them recline at table and proceed to wait on them,” (Lk 12,37)… Great is this promise, then, and happy its fulfilment. Let us act in such a way as to be worthy of it; may we be so helped as to come to the place where the Lord will serve us at table. What will that meal be if not a rest? And what does “He will serve us” mean if not that he will satisfy us? With what food and drink? To be sure, with truth itself… Do you doubt that God is able to feed you in this way when already your eyes are being filled with light in the same way? If many see the light, yet it shines abundantly; if few see it, yet it shines with the same brightness. It spreads comfort abroad but cannot fall short; we use it without causing its diminishment… Why do you still not understand? Because you are preoccupied with many things. Martha’s work preoccupies you. Even more: it preoccupies us all. For who is free from this work of serving?… And so, my beloved, I beg and exhort you…: let us long for this life together. Let us run together towards it so that, when we arrive, we may dwell there. The time is coming and will have no end when the Lord will seat us at table to serve us. With what will he serve us if not himself? Why ask what you will be eating? It is the Lord himself… “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord,” (Ps 27,4)… So let us not have any taste for fleshly food…: it will come to an end. If you want to carry out Martha’s task by busying yourself with it, let it be with moderation and compassion… Work comes to an end, rest will come, yet one doesn’t attain to rest except by working. The boat passes on, one reaches one’s homeland, yet the homeland is reached only by means of the boat. But I am certain that we will not suffer shipwreck because we are carried on the wood of the cross.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

“This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem” (Wsd 5,16). The Bride of the Canticle points out him whom she sought directly, saying: “This is he whom I seek, who rose from Judah to become our Brother, and became neighbor to him who fell among robbers and healed his wounds with oil, wine and bandages; then taking him on his own beast, he set him down to rest at an inn, offering two silver pieces for his stay, and promising that on his return he would repay any service that was discharged over and above his command. The point of each of these details is surely clear. The man who was an expert in the Law wanted to test the Lord and set himself higher than the others, and in his pride had complete contempt for any equality with the rest. And so he said: “Who is my neighbor?” And then the Word explained, in the form of a story, God’s entire economy of mercy. He told of the man’s descent, the robbers’ ambush, the stripping of the garment of immortality, the wounds of sin, the progress of death over half of man’s nature while his soul remained immortal. Then came the passage of the Law that brought no help (since neither the priest nor the Levite tended the wounds of the man who fell among robbers). “For it was impossible for the blood of goats and oxen to remove man’s sin” (Heb 10,4). He alone could do so who was clothed in the whole of human nature – Jewish, Samaritan, Greek – all humankind. With his body, the beast of burden, he proceeded to the place of man’s disaster, healed his wounds and set him upon his own beast. He created for him the inn of his compassion, in which all those who labor and are burdened can find rest (Mt 11,28).
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

“The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel” says the prophet (Is 5:7). We ourselves are this house… and, since we are his Israel, we are the vineyard. So let us take good care that grapes of wrath (Rv 14:19) rather than sweetness do not grow from our branches, so that no one may say to us: “I expected grapes but it yielded wild grapes” (Is 5:4). What fruitless soil! The soil that should have presented its master with fruits of sweetness, pierced him with its sharp thorns. In the same way his enemies, who ought to have welcomed our Savior with all the devotion of their faith, crowned him with the thorns of his Passion. In their eyes this crown expressed insult and abuse, but in the Lord’s eyes it was the crown of virtue… My brethren, take good care that no one says with regard to you: “He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (Is 5:2)… Let us be careful that our evil deeds do not rub against our Lord’s head like thorns. There are thorns in the heart that have even wounded the word of God, as our Lord says in the gospel when he relates how the sower’s seed fell among thorns that grew and choked what had been sown (Mt 13:7)… So take care that your vineyard does not bring forth thorns instead of grapes and your vintage produce vinegar instead of wine. Anyone who gathers in the grapes without sharing them with the poor is collecting vinegar instead of wine; and anyone who stores his harvests without sharing them with needy is not setting aside the fruit of almsgiving but the briars of greed.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team