maandag 4 maart 2024

4 March St. Casimir met lezing getijdengebed


Getijdengebed - Lezingendienst:

Uit het levensverhaal van de heilige Casimir († 1484)

Hij zag zijn rijkdom in de voorschriften van de Allerhoogste.
Door de heilige Geest brandde er in Casimir een bijna ongelooflijke, niet geveinsde, maar oprechte liefde jegens God. De liefde was overdadig in zijn hart gestort en vanuit zijn binnenste stroomde zij overvloedig uit naar de naaste. Daarom was er voor hem niets vreugdevollers en niets aangenamers dan zijn bezittingen af te staan en tevens zichzelf helemaal weg te schenken aan de armen van Christus, de zieken, de gevangenen en de bedroefden.
Niet alleen beschermde hij weduwen, wezen en onderdrukten, niet alleen zorgde hij voor hen, maar hij was voor hen ook een vader, een zoon en een broer.
Het zou hier werkelijk een te lang verhaal worden, als wij zijn werken van grote genegenheid en liefde die in hem jegens God en de naaste zo rijkelijk gestalte kregen, in alle bijzonderheden zouden moeten vermelden. Hoezeer hij de gerechtigheid beoefend heeft, hoezeer hij de matigheid betracht heeft, met wat voor een bezonnenheid hij begiftigd was en door wat voor een geestkracht en standvastigheid hij gedragen werd - en dat in een tijd met nogal vrijmoedige opvattingen, waarin de mens van nature tot het kwaad geneigd was en zich daaraan met hart en ziel overgaf -, dat alles kan bijna niet met woorden uitgedrukt worden en kan men zich ook nauwelijks voorstellen.
Dagelijks gaf Casimir zijn vader de raad, gerechtigheid te laten gelden bij het besturen van zijn rijk en van de volkeren die aan hem onderworpen waren. En als er dan soms ook door zorgeloosheid of menselijke zwakheid bij het besturen iets verwaarloosd werd, dan liet hij nooit na de koning op bescheiden wijze hiervan een verwijt te maken.
Hij beschermde en behartigde de aangelegenheden van de behoeftige en arme mensen evenzeer als zijn eigen zaken. Daarom werd hij door het volk de verdediger van de armen genoemd. Ook al was hij de zoon van de koning en van voorname afstamming, hij betoonde zich gemakkelijk toegankelijk in omgang en gesprek, voor ieder, hoe klein en gering hij ook was.
Hij wilde altijd liever gerekend worden tot de zachtmoedigen en de armen van geest, aan wie het rijk der hemelen behoort (vgl. Mt. 5, 3) dan tot de aanzienlijken en de machtigen van deze wereld. Hij streefde niet naar de grootst mogelijke menselijke macht, en wilde deze evenmin aanvaarden, ook al bood zijn vader hem deze aan. Daarbij bezielde hem de vrees dat zijn hart door de angels van de rijkdom, die onze Heer Jezus Christus distels noemt (vgl. Mt. 13, 7), gewond of door de besmetting met aardse dingen vergiftigd zou worden.
Hij heeft tot het einde, tot op de laatste dag van zijn leven, maagdelijk geleefd. Dat wordt ten stelligste bevestigd door allen, zijn kamerdienaren en secretarissen, voorname en voortreffelijke mannen, van wie er enkelen nog in leven zijn en met wie hij altijd zeer vertrouwelijk omging en die hem zeer goed kenden.

zondag 3 maart 2024

3 March - Saint Katherine Drexel: A Life of Caring and Service

Introitus 3e zondag Veertigdagentijd- Oculi mei semper ad Dominum

Lezingen H. Mis 3e zondag van de vasten jaar B Jezus wist wat er in de mens stak en daarom was het niet nodig dat iemand Hem over de mens inlichtte.


 Eerste lezing (Ex. 20, 1-17)

Uit het boek Exodus.
In die dagen sprak God al de woorden die hier volgen.
“Ik ben de Heer uw God, die u heb weggeleid uit Egypte, het slavenhuis.
Gij zult geen andere goden hebben ten koste van Mij.
Gij zult geen godenbeelden maken,
geen afbeelding van enig wezen boven in de hemel,
beneden op aarde of in de wateren onder de aarde.
Gij zult u voor hen niet ter aarde buigen
en hun geen goddelijke eer bewijzen;
want Ik, de Heer uw God,
Ik ben voor hen die Mij haten een jaloerse God,
die de schuld van de vaders wreekt op hun kinderen
tot het derde en vierde geslacht,
maar voor hen die Mij liefhebben en mijn geboden onderhouden
een God die goedheid bewijst tot aan het duizendste geslacht.
Gij zult de Naam van de Heer uw God niet lichtvaardig gebruiken;
want de Heer laat hen, die zijn Naam lichtvaardig gebruiken,
niet ongestraft.
Denk aan de sabbat: die moet heilig voor u zijn.
Zes dagen zult gij werken en alle arbeid verrichten.
Maar de zevende dag is de sabbat voor de Heer uw God.
Dan moogt gij geen enkele arbeid verrichten:
gij zelf niet, uw zoon niet, uw dochter niet,
uw slaaf niet, uw slavin niet, uw dieren niet,
zelfs niet de vreemdeling die bij u woont.
In zes dagen immers heeft de Heer de hemel, de aarde,
de zee met al wat er in is gemaakt.
Maar de zevende dag heeft Hij gerust
en zo de sabbat gezegend en tot een heilige dag gemaakt.
Eer uw vader en uw moeder.
Dan zult gij lang leven op de grond die de Heer uw God u schenkt.
Gij zult niet doden.
Gij zult geen echtbreuk plegen.
Gij zult niet stelen.
Gij zult tegen uw naaste niet leugenachtig getuigen.
Gij zult uw zinnen niet zetten op het huis van uw naaste;
gij zult uw zinnen niet zetten op de vrouw van uw naaste,
niet op zijn slaaf, zijn slavin,
zijn rund of zijn ezel,
op niets wat hem toebehoort.”

Tweede lezing (1 Kor. 1, 22-25)
Uit de eerste brief van de heilige apostel Paulus aan de christenen van Korinte.
Broeders en zusters,
Joden eisen wonderen, Grieken wijsheid.
Maar wij verkondigen een gekruisigde Christus,
voor Joden een aanstoot, voor heidenen een dwaasheid;
maar voor hen die geroepen zijn, Joden zowel als Grieken,
is die Christus Gods kracht en Gods wijsheid.
Want de dwaasheid van God is wijzer dan de mensen
en de zwakheid van God is sterker dan de mensen.

Evangelie (Joh. 2, 13-25)
Toen het Paasfeest der Joden nabij was,
ging Jezus op naar Jeruzalem.
In de tempel trof Hij de verkopers aan
van runderen, schapen en duiven
en ook de geldwisselaars die daar zaten.
Hij maakte van touwen een gesel,
dreef ze allemaal uit de tempel,
ook de schapen en de runderen;
het kleingeld van de wisselaars veegde Hij van de tafels
en Hij wierp die omver.
En tot de duivenhandelaars zei Hij:
“Weg met dit alles!
Maakt van het huis van mijn Vader geen markthal!”
Zijn leerlingen herinnerden zich dat er geschreven staat:
De ijver voor uw huis zal mij verteren.
De Joden richtten zich tot Hem met de woorden:
“Wat voor teken kunt Gij ons laten zien,
dat Gij dit doen moogt?”
Waarop Jezus hun antwoordde:
“Breekt deze tempel af
en in drie dagen zal Ik hem doen herrijzen.”
Maar de Joden merkten op:
“Zesenveertig jaar is aan deze tempel gebouwd;
zult Gij hem dan in drie dagen doen herrijzen?”
Jezus echter sprak over de tempel van zijn lichaam.
Toen Hij dan ook verrezen was uit de doden,
herinnerden zijn leerlingen zich dat Hij dit gezegd had,
en zij geloofden in de Schrift
en in het woord dat Jezus gesproken had.
Terwijl Hij bij gelegenheid van het Paasfeest in Jeruzalem was,
begonnen er velen in zijn Naam te geloven
bij het zien van de tekenen die Hij deed.
Maar Jezus van zijn kant had geen vertrouwen in hen,
omdat Hij allen kende.
Hij wist wat er in de mens stak
en daarom was het niet nodig
dat iemand Hem over de mens inlichtte.

Quadragesima Sunday III | The Third Sunday in Lent ~ Dom Prosper GuĂ©ranger - "The Church is putting within your reach those grand means of victory, – Fasting, Prayer, and Almsdeeds".


The holy Church gave us, as the subject of our meditation for the first Sunday of Lent, the Temptation which our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to suffer in the Desert. Her object was to enlighten us with regard to our own temptations, and teach us how to conquer them. To-day, she wishes to complete her instruction on the power and stratagems of our invisible enemies; and for this she reads to us a passage from the Gospel of St. Luke. During Lent, the Christian ought to repair the past, and provide for the future; but he can neither understand how it was he fell, nor defend himself against a relapse, unless he have correct ideas as to the nature of the dangers which have hitherto proved fatal, and are again threatening him. Hence, the ancient Liturgists would have us consider it as a proof of the maternal watchfulness of the Church, that she should have again proposed such a subject to us. As we shall find, it is the basis of all to-day’s instructions.

Assuredly, we should be the blindest and most unhappy of men, if, – surrounded as we are by enemies, who unceasingly seek to destroy us, and are so superior to us both in power and knowledge, – we were seldom or never to think of the existence of these wicked spirits. And yet, such is really the case with innumerable Christians now-a-days; for, truths are diminished from among the children of men [Ps. xi. 2].

So common, indeed, is this heedlessness and forgetfulness of truth, which the Holy Scriptures put before us in almost every page, that it is no rare thing to meet with persons who ridicule the idea of Devils being permitted to be on this earth of ours! They call it a prejudice, a popular superstition, of the Middle-Ages! Of course they deny that it is a dogma of Faith. When we read the History of the Church or the Lives of the Saints, they have their own way of explaining whatever is there related on this subject. To hear them talk, one would suppose that they look upon Satan as a mere abstract idea, to be taken as the personification of evil.

When they would account for the origin of their own or others’ sins, they explain all by the evil inclination of man’s heart, and by the bad use we make of our free-will. They never think of what we are taught by Christian doctrine; namely, that we are also instigated to sin by a wicked being, whose power is as great as is the hatred he bears us. And yet, they know, they believe, with a firm faith, that Satan conversed with our First Parents, and persuaded them to commit sin, and showed himself to them under the form of a serpent. They believe, that this same Satan dared to tempt the Incarnate Son of God, and that he carried him through the air, and set him first upon a pinnacle of the Temple, and then upon a very high mountain. Again; they read in the Gospel, and they believe, that one of the Possessed, who were delivered by our Saviour, was tormented by a whole legion of devils, who, upon being driven out of the man, went, by Jesus’ permission, into a herd of swine, and the whole herd ran violently into the sea of Genesareth, and perished in the waters. These, and many other such like facts, are believed, by the persons of whom we speak, with all the earnestness of faith; yet, notwithstanding, they treat as a figure of speech, or a fiction, all they hear or read about the existence, the actions, or the craft of these wicked spirits. Are such people Christians, or have they lost their senses? One would scarcely have expected that this species of incredulity could have found its way into an age like this, when sacrilegious consultations of the devil have been, we might almost say, – fashionable. Means, which were used in the days of paganism, have been resorted to for such consultations; and they who employed them seemed to forget, or ignore, that they were committing what God in the Old Law, punished with death, and which, for many centuries, was considered by all Christian nations as a capital crime.

But if there be one Season of the Year more than another in which the Faithful ought to reflect upon what is taught us both by faith and experience, as to the existence and workings of the wicked spirits, – it is undoubtedly this of Lent, when it is our duty to consider what have been the causes of our last sins, what are the spiritual dangers we have to fear for the future, and what means we should have recourse to for preventing a relapse. Let us, then, hearken to the Holy Gospel. Firstly, we are told, that the devil had possessed a man, and that the effect produced by this possession was dumbness. Our Saviour casts out the devil, and, immediately, the dumb man spoke. So that, the being possessed by the devil is not only a fact which testifies to God’s impenetrable justice; it is one which may produce physical effects upon them that are thus tried or punished. The casting out the devil restores the use of speech to him that had been possessed. We say nothing about the obstinate malice of Jesus’ enemies, who would have it, that his power over the devils, came from his being in league with the prince of devils:– all we would now do is, to show that the wicked spirits are sometimes permitted to have power over the body, and to refute, by this passage from the Gospel, the rationalism of certain Christians. Let these learn, then, that the power of our spiritual enemies is an awful reality; and let them take heed not to lay themselves open to their worst attacks, by persisting in the disdainful haughtiness of their Reason.

Ever since the promulgation of the Gospel, the power of Satan over the human body has been restricted by the virtue of the Cross, at least in Christian countries; but this power resumes its sway as often as faith and the practice of Christian piety lose their influence. And here we have the origin of all those diabolical practices, which, under certain scientific names, are attempted first in secret, and then are countenanced by being assisted at by well-meaning Christians. Were it not that God and his Church intervene, such practices as these would subvert society. Christians! remember baptismal vow! you have renounced Satan: take care, then, that by a culpable ignorance you are not dragged into apostacy. It is not a phantom that you renounced at the Font; he is a real and formidable being, who, as our Lord tells us, was a murderer from the beginning [St. John, viii. 44].

But, if we ought to dread the power he may be permitted to have over our bodies; if we ought to shun all intercourse with him, and take no share in practices over which he presides, and which are the worship he would have men give him; – we ought, also, to fear the influence he is ever striving to exercise over our souls. See, what God’s grace has had to do in order to drive him from our soul! During this holy season, the Church is putting within your reach those grand means of victory, – Fasting, Prayer, and Almsdeeds. Tue sweets of peace will soon be yours, and, once more, you will become God’s temple, for both soul and body will have regained their purity. But be not deceived; your enemy is not slain. He is irritated; penance has driven him from you; but he has sworn to return. Therefore, fear a relapse into mortal sin; and in order to nourish within you this wholesome fear, meditate upon the concluding part of our Gospel.

Our Saviour tells its, that when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water. There he writhes under his humiliation; it has added to the tortures of the hell he carries everywhere with him and to which he fain would give some alleviation, by destroying souls that have been redeemed by Christ. We read in the Old Testament that, sometimes, when the devils have been conquered, they have been forced to flee into some far-off wilderness: for example. the holy Archangel Raphael took the devil, that had killed Sara’s husbands, and bound him in the desert of Upper Egypt [Tob. viii. 3]. But the enemy of mankind never despairs of regaining his prey. His hatred is as active now, as it was at the very beginning of the world, and he says: I will return into my house, whence I came out. Nor will he come alone. He is determined to conquer; and therefore he will, if he think it needed, take with him seven other spirits, even more wicked than himself. What a terrible assault is this that is being prepared for the poor soul, unless she be on the watch, and unless the peace, which  God has granted her, be one that is well armed for war! Alas! with many souls the very contrary is the case and our Saviour describes the situation in which the devils finds them on his return: they are swept and garnished, and that is all! No precautions, no defence, no arms. One would suppose that they were waiting to give the enemy admission. Then Satan, to make his re-possession sure, comes with a seven-fold force. The attack is made;- but, there is no resistance, and straightways the wicked spirits entering in, dwell there; so that, the last state becometh worse than the first; for before, there was but one enemy, – and now there are many.

   In order that we may understand the full force of the warning conveyed to us by the Church in this Gospel, we must keep before us the great reality, that this is the acceptable time. In every part of the world, there are conversions being wrought; millions are being reconciled with God; divine Mercy is lavish of pardon to all that seek it. But, will all persevere? They that are now being delivered from the power of Satan, – will they all be free from his yoke, when next year’s Lent comes round? A sad experience tells the Church, that she may not hope so grand a result. Many will return to their sins, and that too before many weeks are over. And if the Justice of God overtake them in that state – what an awful thing it is to say it, yet it is true, – some, perhaps many, of these sinners will be eternally lost! Let us, then, be on our guard against a relapse; and in order that we may ensure our Perseverance, without which it would have been to little purpose to have been for a few days in God’s grace, – let us watch, and pray; let us keep ourselves under arms; let us ever remember that our whole life is to be a warfare. Our soldier-like attitude will disconcert the enemy, and he will try to gain victory elsewhere.

Tue Third Sunday of Lent is called Oculi, from the first word of the Introit. In the primitive Church, it was called Scrutiny-Sunday, because it was on this day that they began to examine the Catechumens, who were to he admitted to Baptism on Easter night. All the Faithful were invited to assemble in the Church, in order that they might bear testimony to the good life and morals of the candidates. At Rome, these examinations, which where called the Scrutinies, were made on seven different occasions, on account of the great number of the aspirants to Baptism; but the principal Scrutiny was that held on the Wednesday of the Fourth Week We will speak of it later on.

The Roman Sacramentary of St. Gelasius gives us the form, in which the Faithful were convoked to these assemblies. It is as follows. “Dearly beloved Brethren: you know that the day of Scrutiny, when our elect are to receive the holy instruction, is at hand. We invite you, therefore, to be zealous and assemble on N., (here, the day was mentioned,) at the hour of Sext; that so we may be able, by the divine aid, to achieve without error, the heavenly mystery, whereby is opened the gate of the kingdom of heaven, and the devil is excluded with all his pomps.” The invitation was repeated, if needed, on each of the following Sundays. The Scrutiny of this Sunday ended in the admission of a certain number of candidates: their names were written down, and put on the Diptychs of the Altar, that they might be mentioned in the Canon of the Mass. The same also was done with the names of their Sponsors.

The Station was, and still is, in the Basilica of Saint Laurence outside the walls. The name of this, the most celebrated of the Martyrs of Rome, would remind the Catechumens, that the Faith they were about to profess, would require them to be ready for many sacrifices.

Vindplaats: The Old Roman