32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

"Stay awake," says Christ in this week's Gospel passage from Matthew (25:1-13). In short, our Lord exhorts us to be spiritually alert, vigilant and eager for his coming. While we know he will come again at the end of the ages, we are called to be ready to welcome Jesus who comes lovingly into our lives at every moment. Pope Francis expounds further on this Gospel:

Five Foolish Virgins, France (12th century)

The Bridegroom is the Lord, and the time of waiting for his arrival is the time he gives to us, to all of us, before his Final Coming with mercy and patience; it is a time of watchfulness; a time in which we must keep alight the lamps of faith, hope and charity, a time in which to keep our heart open to goodness, beauty and truth. It is a time to live in accordance with God, because we do not know either the day or the hour of Christ’s return.

What he asks of us is to be ready for the encounter — ready for an encounter, for a beautiful encounter, the encounter with Jesus, which means being able to see the signs of his presence, keeping our faith alive with prayer, with the sacraments, and taking care not to fall asleep so as to not forget about God. The life of slumbering Christians is a sad life, it is not a happy life. Christians must be happy, with the joy of Jesus. Let us not fall asleep!

November 1 Solemnity of All Saints, Year B

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints. This glorious feast has its roots in the early Church, when a martyr's death was commemorated on the anniversary at the place of martyrdom. By the 4th century, the Church honored all martyrs, known and unknown, on a common feastday. In the early 600s, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Roman Pantheon (Greek for "All the gods"), which had been a pagan temple, to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. He also established the "Feast of All Martyrs," which by the mid-700s was extended to include all the saints in heaven.

In a homily, St. Bernard spoke movingly about our fellowship with the saints in glory:

Why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this feast day mean anything to the saints? What do they care about earthly honors when their heavenly Father honors them by fulfilling the faithful promise of the Son? What does our commendation mean to them? The saints have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning.

Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed.

Come, brothers, let us at length spur ourselves on. We must rise again with Christ, we must seek the world which is above and set our mind on the things of heaven. Let us long for those who are longing for us, hasten to those who are waiting for us, and ask those who look for our coming to intercede for us. We should not only want to be with the saints, we should also hope to possess their happiness. While we desire to be in their company, we must also earnestly seek to share in their glory. Do not imagine that there is anything harmful in such an ambition as this; there is no danger in setting our hearts on such glory.

On this feast of Alls Saints, and every day, may this "great cloud of witnesses" in heavenly glory intercede for us!

The Forerunners of Christ with Saints & Martyrs (ca. 1423-24), Fra Angelico (National Gallery, London)

30th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Jesus reminds in today's Gospel that love is at the heart of Christian life. "The whole law and the prophets depend on the twofold commandment" (Mt. 22:40) to love God and neighbor. All things are measured by love: “love and do what you will ... let the root of love be in you,” says St. Augustine. He emphasizes the importance of this greatest commandment in his homily:

What else is there to speak of apart from love? To speak about love there is no need to select some special passage of Scripture to serve as a text for the homily; open the Bible at any page and you will find it extolling love. We know this is so from the Lord himself, as the gospel reminds us, for when asked what were the most important commandments of the law he answered: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself....

People are renewed by love. As sinful desire ages them, so love rejuvenates them. Enmeshed in the toils of his desires the psalmist laments: I have grown old surrounded by my enemies. Love, on the other hand, is the sign of our renewal as we know from the Lord’s own words: I gave you a new commandment – love one another.

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

God is a God of surprises! With each new day, He leads us in ways unexpected and unpredictable. In this Sunday's Gospel, Matthew 22:15-21, Jesus declares that we must render to God the things that are God's; this is a call to live according to the divine will, whatever it may be. Pope Francis expounded on this theme in a homily:

Render unto Caesar, Anton Dorph (1831-1914)

God is not afraid of new things! That is why he is continually surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways. He renews us: he constantly makes us “new”. A Christian who lives the Gospel is “God’s newness” in the Church and in the world. How much God loves this “newness”!

“Rendering to God the things that are God’s” means being docile to his will, devoting our lives to him and working for his kingdom of mercy, love and peace.

Here is where our true strength is found; here is the leaven which makes it grow and the salt which gives flavor to all our efforts to combat the prevalent pessimism which the world proposes to us. Here too is where our hope is found, for when we put our hope in God we are neither fleeing from reality nor seeking an alibi: instead, we are striving to render to God what is God’s. That is why we Christians look to the future, God’s future. It is so that we can live this life to the fullest – with our feet firmly planted on the ground – and respond courageously to whatever new challenges come our way.

28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

In this Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 22: 1-14), Jesus tells his disciples the parable of the wedding banquet. A king invites guests to his son’s feast, but for various excuses they don't come: They made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. In a 2011 homily Pope Benedict gave on Holy Thursday at the Mass of the Lord's Supper—the ultimate wedding banquet—he reminds us:

Parable of the Wedding Feast, 14th c. Russian icon

In his heart [Jesus] awaited the moment when he would give himself to his own under the appearance of bread and wine. He awaited that moment which would in some sense be the true messianic wedding feast: when he would transform the gifts of this world and become one with his own, so as to transform them and thus inaugurate the transformation of the world. In this eager desire of Jesus we can recognize the desire of God himself—his expectant love for mankind, for his creation. A love which awaits the moment of union, a love which wants to draw mankind to itself and thereby fulfil the desire of all creation, for creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God (cf. Rom 8:19). Jesus desires us, he awaits us.

But what about ourselves? Do we really desire him? Are we anxious to meet him? Do we desire to encounter him, to become one with him, to receive the gifts he offers us in the Holy Eucharist? Or are we indifferent, distracted, busy about other things? From Jesus’ banquet parables we realize that he knows all about empty places at table, invitations refused, lack of interest in him and his closeness.

27th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

In this Sunday's Gospel (Matthew 21: 33-43), Jesus reveals through the Parable of the Tenants the importance of responding to the call of God. He is always waiting for fruit to be borne in us, always looking for the "crop of good grapes" (Isaiah 5:2). We can choose to be like the unresponsive, wicked tenants, or be as the "good soil" that Jesus describes in his Parable of the Sower. Fr. Jean Danielou S.J., a French theologian of the 20th century, brings this point to light in this text from The Lord of History:

Parable of the Tenants, by Liberale da Verona (1441–1526)

God is the husbandman, expecting, hoping, desiring such great things from us. He prepared the soil in which our souls were to grow up and flourish; he ceases not to nourish, protect and encourage their growth, all our lives long. Every circumstance of our environment is an instance of God's care for us....

The point of the Song of the Vine is that it reveals how much store God sets by the spiritual profit of our lives, and how much he depends for this upon our help.... Some things are beyond our control, and temporal success is one of these; other things are at all times within our control, such as the spiritual response we make to the situations in which the Lord is pleased to put us, or the determination to find God in all the circumstances of our life, be they joys or crosses. If we do this, everything that happens to us is nourishment for the sap of that spiritual vine, namely our eternal soul, everything co-operates in its growth to perfection.

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

This Sunday's Gospel (Matthew 21: 28-32) presents us with the short but powerful Parable of the Two Sons. The first son, when asked to work in the vineyard, finally did his father's will. The second son---although he verbally agreed---did not.

Yves de Montcheuil, a French priest, theologian and chaplain to the free French of Vercors during the Second World War, was executed by the army of occupation in 1944. Having remained faithful to Christ in life and in death, Fr. de Montcheuil reveals the importance of being attentive to the will of God and the beauty in accomplishing it:

The kingdom is for each one of us the response to a personal call; it means clinging to the personal will of God which varies for each one and likewise varies according to our circumstance. God's plan seen from the human angle is not a law established once and for all but a will revealed gradually according the needs of the Church and our personal capabilities.

Indeed the kingdom is not a place where we can sit back and relax. We have to be always following Jesus without knowing beforehand where we are going, ready to discern what God is expecting of us now. We must, then, keep careful watch, wakeful, attentive, and yet peaceful, to discern this living and evolving will of God. His demands on us can make us grow; he can ask of us tomorrow what he did not ask yesterday and so these demands engage us constantly in new ways. We need to examine our motives in all we do in order to hold ourselves in readiness for God.

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

In this week's Gospel, Matthew 20:1-16, we see a generous vineyard owner giving equally to all of his hired workers. Some worked long hours, others few, and yet the owner—who is God himself—bestows his goodness on all. Why is this so? God's generosity is gratuitous and unmerited, and we benefit from it simply because we are his children. St. Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic exhortation to lay Christians, emphasizes the key to understanding this parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. He stresses that the simple act of being a Christian imparts great value, based on the merits of Christ. Perhaps it is not so much that we do great and laborious things for God, but that we are grateful for the great things God does for us. Here's part of his exhortation:

Laborers in the Vineyard,  Codex Aureus of Echternach (ca. 1030–1050)

All the members of the People of God—clergy, men and women religious, the lay faithful—are laborers in the vineyard. At one and the same time they are all the goal and subjects of Church communion as well as of participation in the mission of salvation. Every one of us possessing charisms and ministries, diverse yet complementary, works in the one and the same vineyard of the Lord.

Simply in being Christians, even before actually doing the works of a Christian, all are branches of the one fruitful vine which is Christ. All are living members of the one Body of the Lord built up through the power of the Spirit. The significance of “being”  a Christian does not come about simply from the life of grace and holiness which is the primary and more productive source of the apostolic and missionary fruitfulness of Holy Mother Church. Its meaning also arises from the state of life that characterizes the clergy, men and women religious, members of secular institutes and the lay faithful.

24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

A challenging passage from the Gospel of Matthew (18:21-35) is presented to us today on the need to forgive others. Peter asks,“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus, calling him to imitate the infinite forgiveness of God, responds, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." Christ uses the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant to further illustrate how our mercy toward others must flow from the mercy he bestows on us. St. Augustine, commenting on this parable, writes:

Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, Claude Vignon (1593–1670)

There are two works of mercy which will set us free. They are briefly set down in the gospel in the Lord’s own words: Forgive and you will be forgiven, and Give and you will receive. The former concerns pardon, the latter generosity. As regards pardon he says: “Just as you want to be forgiven, so someone is in need of your forgiveness.” Again, as regards generosity, consider when a beggar asks you for something that you are a beggar to in relation to God. When we pray we are all beggars before God. We are standing at the door of a great householder, or rather, lying prostrate, and begging with tears. We are longing to receive a gift—the gift of God himself.

What does a beggar ask of you? Bread. And you, what do you ask of God, if not Christ who said: I am the living bread that has come down from heaven? Do you want to be pardoned? Then pardon others. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Do you want to receive? Give and you will receive.

23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Jesus's words in today's Gospel (Matthew 18: 15-20), "Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them," are a call to unity among us as individuals and as Christians. "Love," said Pope Benedict XVI, "acts as the principle that unites Christians and guarantees that their unanimous prayer is heard by the Heavenly Father." In this homily, given at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, he said:

"Deus caritas est" (1 John 4:8,16), God is love. The faith of the Church, in its entirety, is founded on this solid rock. In particular, the patient pursuit of full communion among all of Christ's disciples is based upon it: By fixing one's gaze on this truth, summit of divine revelation, it seems possible to overcome divisions and not to be discouraged, even though they continue to be gravely serious.

The Lord Jesus, who broke down the "dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14) with the blood of his passion, will not fail to grant to those who faithfully invoke him the strength to heal every wound. But it is always necessary to start anew from this point: "Deus caritas est."

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. These are difficult words, which Jesus addresses to his disciples - including us - in today's Gospel (Matthew 16: 21-27). Who by nature welcomes suffering? And yet Our Lord does not tell us to take up our cross and follow our own path, but, Follow me. We are not alone. Jesus prepares the way, as Pope Francis tells us:

Christ Carrying the Cross, (ca. 1565) Titian

Our Lord’s command seems hard and heavy, that anyone who wants to follow him must renounce himself. But no command is hard and heavy when it comes from one who helps to carry it out. That other saying of his is true: My yoke is easy and my burden light. Whatever is hard and his commands is made easy by love....

Who would not wish to follow Christ to supreme happiness, perfect peace, and lasting security? We shall do well to follow him there, but we need to know the way. The Lord Jesus had not yet risen from the dead when he gave this invitation. His passion was still before him; he had still to endure the cross, to face outrages, reproaches, scourging; to be pierced by thorns, wounded, insulted, taunted, and put to death. The road seems rough, you draw back, you do not want to follow Christ. Follow him just the same. The road we made for ourselves is rough, but Christ has levelled it by passing over it himself.

21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

In today's Gospel (Matt. 16:13-20), Jesus asks his disciples “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” And then he asks them, “But you, who do you say that I am?” Peter gives the response: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In a homily for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Francis commented on this passage:

Today [Jesus] looks straight at us and asks, “Who am I for you?” As if to say: “Am I still the Lord  your life, the longing of your heart, the reason for your hope, the source of your unfailing trust?” Along with Saint Peter, we too renew today our life choice to be Jesus’ disciples and apostles....

Those who confess Jesus know that they are not simply to offer opinions but to offer their very lives. They know that they are not to believe half-heartedly but to “be on fire” with love. They know that they cannot just “tread water” or take the easy way out, but have to risk putting out into the deep, daily renewing their self-offering. Those who confess their faith in Jesus do as Peter and Paul did: they follow him to the end – not just part of the way, but to the very end. They also follow the Lord along his way, not our own ways. His way is that of new life, of joy and resurrection; it is also the way that passes through the cross and persecution.

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

The Church gives us a very powerful message in today's gospel: don't give up in prayer. A Canaanite woman, although a pagan, asks Jesus to heal her daughter, who is tormented by a demon. At first he refuses: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She persists, as Pope Benedict tells us, even when she received an answer that would seem to have extinguished any hope: It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. Jesus was struck with admiration, he continues, for an answer of such great faith and said to her: Be it done for you as you desire.

The Canaanite Woman
Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (1412-1416)

Dear friends, we too are called to grow in faith, to open ourselves in order to welcome God’s gift freely, to have trust and also to cry to Jesus “give us faith, help us to find the way!” This is the way that Jesus made his disciples take, as well as the Canaanite woman and men and women of every epoch and nation and each one of us.

Faith opens us to knowing and welcoming the real identity of Jesus, his newness and oneness, his word, as a source of life, in order to live a personal relationship with him. Knowledge of the faith grows, it grows with the desire to find the way and in the end it is a gift of God who does not reveal himself to us as an abstract thing without a face or a name, because faith responds to a Person who wants to enter into a relationship of deep love with us and to involve our whole life. 

For this reason our heart must undergo the experience of conversion every day, every day it must see us changing from people withdrawn into themselves to people who are open to God’s action, spiritual people (cf. 1 Cor 2:13-14), who let themselves be called into question by the Lord’s word and open their life to his Love.

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

What a wonderful gospel story we are given in this Sunday's Mass! Jesus walks on the water, and St. Peter, impetuous as ever, wants to come to him (Matthew 14: 22-33). But he loses his nerve and starts to sink. These words of St. Augustine, read at Vigils, talk about our own lives, when we are storm-tossed and sinking:

When the Lord said: “Come,” Peter climbed out of the boat and began to walk on the water. This is what he could do through the power of the Lord; what by himself? Realizing how violently the wind was blowing, he lost his nerve, and as he began to sink he called out, “Lord, I am drowning, save me!” When he counted on the Lord’s help it enabled him to walk on the water; when human frailty made him falter he turned once more to the Lord, who immediately stretched out his hand to help him, raised him up as he was sinking, and rebuked him for his lack of faith.

Think, then, of this world as a sea, whipped up to tempestuous heights by violent winds. A person’s own private tempest will be his or her unruly desires. If you love God you will have power to walk upon the waters, and all the world’s swell and turmoil will remain beneath your feet. But if you love the world it will surely engulf you, for it always devours its lovers, never sustains them. If you feel your foot slipping beneath you, if you become a prey to doubt or realise that you are losing control, if, in a word, you begin to sink, say: Lord, I am drowning, save me! Only he who for your sake died in your fallen nature can save you from the death inherent in that fallen nature.

18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Today, the Eucharist is foreshadowed in the gospel’s telling of Jesus’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes (Matthew 14: 13-21). When the disciples tell Jesus to send the crowd away, he tells them to feed them. They protest, but from a meager supply of five loaves and two fish, Our Lord feeds five thousand men, not counting women and children. How often in our own lives do we face a seemingly impossible situation? God asks us to go beyond what we are can do or endure: patience, generosity and forgiveness do not come easily to us. But with his help “we can accomplish all things.”

Here are a few paragraphs on this subject from St. Pope John Paul II’s 1998 Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (On Keeping the Lord’s Day). It’s a long document, but well worth reading and praying over from time to time.

The Eucharist is an event and programme of true brotherhood. From the Sunday Mass there flows a tide of charity destined to spread into the whole life of the faithful, beginning by inspiring the very way in which they live the rest of Sunday. If Sunday is a day of joy, Christians should declare by their actual behaviour that we cannot be happy “on our own.” They look around to find people who may need their help. It may be that in their neighbourhood or among those they know there are sick people, elderly people, children or immigrants who precisely on Sundays feel more keenly their isolation, needs and suffering. It is true that commitment to these people cannot be restricted to occasional Sunday gestures. But presuming a wider sense of commitment, why not make the Lord’s Day a more intense time of sharing, encouraging all the inventiveness of which Christian charity is capable? Inviting to a meal people who are alone, visiting the sick, providing food for needy families, spending a few hours in voluntary work and acts of solidarity: these would certainly be ways of bringing into people’s lives the love of Christ received at the Eucharistic table.

Lived in this way, not only the Sunday Eucharist but the whole of Sunday becomes a great school of charity, justice and peace. The presence of the Risen Lord in the midst of his people becomes an undertaking of solidarity, a compelling force for inner renewal, an inspiration to change the structures of sin in which individuals, communities and at times entire peoples are entangled. Far from being an escape, the Christian Sunday is a “prophecy” inscribed on time itself, a prophecy obliging the faithful to follow in the footsteps of the One who came “to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and new sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk 4:18-19). In the Sunday commemoration of Easter, believers learn from Christ, and remembering his promise: “I leave you peace, my peace I give you” (Jn14:27), they become in their turn builders of peace.

17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Today at Mass, Jesus tells his disciples parables about the Kingdom of Heaven: among them are the image of the treasure hidden in a field, and the pearl of great price (Mt 13:44-52). What is their significance? Pope Francis says that:

Pearl of Great Price by Eugène Burnand

They tell us that the discovery of the Kingdom of God can happen suddenly like the farmer who, ploughing, finds an unexpected treasure; or after a long search, like the pearl merchant who eventually finds the most precious pearl, so long dreamt of. Yet, in each case the point is that the treasure and the pearl are worth more than all other possessions; and therefore when the farmer and the merchant discover them, they give up everything else in order to obtain them. They do not need to rationalize or think about it or reflect: they immediately perceive the incomparable value of what they’ve found and they are prepared to lose everything in order to have it.

This is how it is with the Kingdom of God: those who find it have no doubts, they sense that this is what they have been seeking and waiting for; and this is what fulfills their most authentic aspirations. And it really is like this: those who know Jesus, encounter Him personally, are captivated, attracted by so much goodness, so much truth, so much beauty, and all with great humility and simplicity. To seek Jesus, to find Jesus: this is the great treasure!

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

 This Sunday the Church gives us another parable of sowing seeds (Matthew 13: 24-43), this one dealing with the good seed and the weeds, which the enemy sows. Here is a wonderful exposition on it from Pope Francis, given in 2014:

The Enemy Sowing Tares, James Tissot

The teaching of the parable is twofold. First of all, it tells that the evil in the world comes not from God but from his enemy, the evil one. It is curious that the evil one goes at night to sow weed, in the dark, in confusion; he goes where there is no light to sow weed. This enemy is astute: he sows evil in the middle of good, thus it is impossible for us men to distinctly separate them; but God, in the end, will be able to do so.
And here we arrive at the second theme: the juxtaposition of the impatience of the servants and the patient waiting of the field owner, who represents God. At times we are in a great hurry to judge, to categorize, to put the good here, the bad there....

But remember the prayer of that self-righteous man: “God, I thank you that I am good, that I am not like other men, malicious” (cf. Lk 18:11-12). God, however, knows how to wait. With patience and mercy he gazes into the “field” of life of every person; he sees much better than we do the filth and the evil, but he also sees the seeds of good and waits with trust for them to grow. God is patient, he knows how to wait. This is so beautiful: our God is a patient father, who always waits for us and waits with his heart in hand to welcome us, to forgive us. He always forgives us if we go to him.... 

In the end, in fact, evil will be removed and eliminated: at the time of harvest, that is, of judgment, the harvesters will follow the orders of the field owner, separating the weed to burn it (cf. Mt 13:30). On the day of the final harvest, the judge will be Jesus, He who has sown good grain in the world and who himself became the “grain of wheat”, who died and rose. In the end we will all be judged by the same measure with which we have judged: the mercy we have shown to others will also be shown to us. Let us ask Our Lady, our Mother, to help us to grow in patience, in hope and in mercy with all brothers and sisters.

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

In this Sunday's gospel, taken from Matthew 13: 1-23, Jesus tells the crowd the parable of the sower, who goes out to sow. Some seed falls on the path, some on rocky ground and some among thorns. It is the fruit that falls on good soil that brings forth grain "some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Any dedicated gardener knows the frustration there can be in growing plants from seed, the need for the right kind of soil, and the satisfaction there is in seeing the seeds bear fruit.

Here's part of a homily by St. Gregory the Great, in which he talks about this parable:

The Sower, Vincent van Gogh (detail)

 Be careful that the word you have received through your ears remains in your heart. Be careful that the seed does not fall along the path, for fear that the evil spirit may come and take it from your memory.... The stony ground lacked the necessary moisture for the sprouting seed to yield the fruit of perseverance.

Good earth, on the other hand, brings forth fruit by patience. The reason for this is that nothing we do is good unless we also bear with equanimity the injuries done us by our neighbors. In fact, the more we progress, the more hardships we shall have to endure in this world; for when our love for this present world dies, its sufferings increase. This is why we see many people doing good works and at the same time struggling under a heavy burden of afflictions. They now shun earthly desires, and yet they are tormented by greater sufferings. But, as the Lord said, they bring forth fruit by patience, because, since they humbly endure misfortunes, they are welcomed when these are over into a place of rest in heaven.

Solemnity of St. Benedict

We wish you all a blessed Feast of our Holy Father St. Benedict!

Today, along with other Benedictines, we celebrate the feast of our Holy Father St. Benedict. Here's a reflection from a Brief by Pope St. Paul VI, who declared St. Benedict the Patron of Europe:

Saint Benedict has the reputation of being the messenger of peace, the maker of unity, the master of civilization, and especially the herald of Christianity and the author of monasticism in the West. When darkness seemed to be spreading over Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, he brought the light of dawn to shine upon this continent. For with the cross, the book, and the plough, Christian civilization was carried, principally through him and his sons, to the peoples who lived in those lands which stretch from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from Ireland to the plains of Poland.

St Benedict healing a leper.
Fresco fragment from the lower church of San Crisogono, Rome

With the cross, that is, with the law of Christ, he strengthened and developed the institutions of private and social life. Through the “Work of God,” that is, through the careful and assiduous conduct of prayer, he taught that divine worship was of the greatest importance in the social order. And so he sealed that spiritual unity of Europe in which the various nations of different ethnic origins and languages felt themselves to be united into the one people of God. And so this unity, learnt from so great a master, which the sons of Saint Benedict so faithfully strove to achieve, became the principal element in that period of history called the middle ages. All men of good will in our times must strive to recover that unity, which, as Saint Augustine says, is “the form of all beauty,” and which alas has been lost in the vicissitudes of history.

With the book, that is, with the culture of the mind, this venerable patriarch from whom so many monasteries have drawn their name and their spirit spread his doctrine through the old classics of literature and the liberal arts, preserved and passed on to posterity by them with so much care.

And lastly, with the plough, that is, through agriculture, he changed the waste and desert lands into orchards and delightful gardens; and joining work with prayer in the spirit of those words ora et labora, he restored the dignity of human labor. 

Not without reason, then, did Pope Pius XII call Saint Benedict the “Father of Europe,” for he inspired the peoples of this continent with the love of order upon which their social life depends. We pray he may look upon Europe, and by his prayer achieve even greater things in years to come.

14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves.
During these troubled times today's gospel has carries special comfort. Here's part of a homily by St. John Chrysostom on this passage:

Christ the Consolator,
Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890)

Our Master is always the same, gentle and benevolent. In his constant concern for our salvation, he says explicitly in the gospel just read to us: Come, learn from me. The Master came to console his fallen servants. This is how Christ treats us. He shows pity when a sinner deserves punishment. When the race that angers him deserves to be annihilated, he addresses the guilty ones in the kindly words: Come, learn from me, but I am gentle and humble in heart.

I am the Creator and I love my work. I am the sculptor and I care for what I have made. If I thought of my dignity, I should not rescue fallen humankind. If I failed to treat its incurable sickness with fitting remedies, it would never recover its strength. If I did not console it, it would die. This is why I apply the salve of kindness to it where it lies. Compassionately I bend down very low in order to raise it up. No one standing erect can lift a fallen man without putting a hand down to him.