We must not become possessed by consuming possessions.
Saint John of the Cross guides us in letting go of what binds our hearts from awakening and arising in the light of the Christ child.
The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly.
Saint John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel XI.4.
We must not be seeking some other sign or saviour.
I have told you all things in My Word, My Son…
Fasten your eyes on Him alone because in Him I have spoken and revealed all and in Him, you will discover even more than you ask for and desire. You are making an appeal for locutions and revelations that are incomplete, but if you turn your eyes to Him you will find them complete.
For He is my entire locution and response, vision and revelation, which I have already spoken, answered, manifested, and revealed to you by giving him to you as a brother, companion, master, ransom, and reward.
Saint John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel II.22.5.
Jesus Christ is Lord. he possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, for the Father has put all things under His feet. Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In Him human history and indeed all creation are set forth and transcendently fulfilled.
Catechism of the Catholic Church § 668
For by Him all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:16-17
Yet Christ the King and Lord of the universe made Himself the servant of all, for He came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. For the Christian, to reign is to serve Him, particularly when serving the poor and the suffering, in whom the Church recognizes the image of her poor and suffering founder. The people of God fulfills its royal dignity by a life in keeping with its vocation to serve Christ.
The sign of the Cross makes kings of all those reborn in Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit consecrates them as priests, so that, apart from the particular service of our ministry, all spiritual and rational Christians are recognized as members of His royal race and sharers in Christ’s priestly office.
What, indeed, is as royal for a soul as to govern the body in obedience to God? And what is as priestly as to dedicate a pure conscience to the Lord and to offer the spotless offerings of devotion on the altar of the heart?
Catechism of the Catholic Church § 786; Saint Leo the Great
When Saint Cecilia heard profane music at her wedding, she turned to her inward voice, singing in her heart to the Lord alone.
Guarded by an angel, her questioning husband also observed the angel once he was Baptized. Faithful, they were both martyred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Saint Cecilia remained incorrupt in life, and in death.
In the Word of the Day (Revelation 14:14-19), Christ the King comes with his sharp sickle as Lord of the Harvest. The angel of the Lord swings His sickle over the earth and cuts the earth’s vintage, gathering the harvest to Himself, but casting the dross and chaff into the great wine press of God’s fury.
Let us be the fine wheat to be brought in to the Lord in His harvest, being conformed to the Lord by worthily receiving His precious Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist.
Our Gospel parable has us in vigil, at darkest midnight, waiting for the light of the Son of God (Matthew 25:1-13).
Others are out in the dark, anxious, grieving, in despair, without hope, lacking the wisdom of the knowledge of God (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). They seek to buy their salvation from the market. One cannot buy virtue at the market. That is signalling what one does not have. One cannot simply say, Lord, Lord, without doing the Will of our Heavenly Father, and the work for the heavenly kingdom. The Lord will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’ (Matthew 7:23). One cannot run out of the oil of Charity but then ask Lord, Lord, open to us. ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour’ (Matthew 25).
Vigilant waiting for the Lord is not passive, but active in the Way of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5-7). The oil for the lamps of vigilant Christians is good works, shining before others, giving glory to God our Heavenly Father (Matthew 5:14). This gives constant light to the Christian family, the Christian house, built in wisdom, on the solid rock of the Truth of God (Matthew 7:24).
Constant striving in true virtue for wisdom from the Light of the World is work, but it brings satisfaction, joy, and peace (John 8:12). Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5). This is the Wisdom of God.
I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on Your Word, Lord. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey the Law of the Lord.
Psalm 119:98-100
‘Thank you, Father, for You have hidden these things from elites, but you have revealed them to the simple’ (Matthew 11:25). Blessed are the pure in heart, they shall see God (Matthew 5).
Taking thought of Wisdom, resplendent and unfading, is the perfection of the virtue of prudence (Wisdom 6:12-16). Those who search for the light of wisdom, in the way of virtue, with work in Charity, keeping vigil for the Son of God at dawn, will find the Lord near, at your gate, seeking out those worthy.
Those who seek will not be disappointed, they shall find wisdom. This is the model for Christians. We are to work in virtue, and seek out, and keep vigilant for the light of Christ, the Bridegroom.
The diligent pursuit of virtue in the light of Christ’s beatitudes recalls our Collect prayer (23rd Sunday): May we be freed from the darkness and senselessness of vice, so that unhindered in mind and body alike, we may pursue heaven in freedom of heart.
Yet even with widened phylacteries with the Word of the Lord before us, ministers, disciples may turn aside from the Way, and cause the faithful to falter.
“Have we not all the one father? Has not the one God created us? Why then do we break faith with one another, violating the covenant of our fathers?”
Let us humbly serve, and proclaim the Truth of the Word of the Lord, as Saint Paul faithfully teaches (1 Thessalonians 2:7-13). Let us live the beatitudes as our Lord teaches, unto Beatitude, in life eternal (Matthew 5).
‘Lord, my heart is not proud. In You, Lord, I find my peace. Let us wait for the Lord, now, and forevermore‘ (Psalm 131).
Phylacterys for head & arm. The one with letter shin for the head. Deut. X: 13-21, Exodus XIII: 1-16 inclusive ; Quotation contained in phylactery for the arm. Deut. VII: 4-9
Love God, Love neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:34-40; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). This is both tablets of the decalogue, meaning, all of the Ten Commandments, the ‘whole Law and the prophets.’
Our Lord and Saviour is actually asking us not only to save our soul by guarding ourselves with the guardrails of the Commandments, but also to strive to be saints, living the beatitudes (Matthew 5).
We hear from a lawyer, the only mention of a lawyer in Matthew’s Gospel. He refers to Jesus as ‘teacher,’ indicating his disbelief in the Son of God before him. The lawyer tests Jesus, the same word used in Matthew’s account of the temptation of Jesus by the devil in the wilderness… but You shall not put the Lord your God to the test (Matthew 4:1-11). The lawyer might think he has an impassible test, forcing a choice among 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions enforced by the human elite tradition of the Pharisees. Our Letter of James (2:10) warns that whoever keeps all this law but fails on one point becomes guilty of all of it.
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, takes us back to God’s Law for our good. Back to the shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:34-40).
Heart is not a fleeting feeling, a passing passion, it is not soft. Heart is to be the centre of our thought, our decisions, our actions, toward God and neighbour. The pure of heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). To love God with our soul is to love God with our very life. Our soul is our life. It is God’s gift of life given to us at our conception (Genesis 2:7). To love God with our soul, our life, should be our gift to God.
We are to love God with all our mind, our reason, which should demonstrate the goodness that follows from following God’s Law in love. Our reading from Exodus (22:21-27) recalls the horrors of the alternative. Slavery. Killings. Widows and orphans left to work exposed without even a cloak against the heat of the desert day or the dark cold of night. All our reason should tell us not to repeat these horrors. Our reason should tell us we need the love of God, for life. To see the image and likeness of God in those we meet, who might be lost, in their devisings, in the devisings of others who no longer know or love God nor anyone other than themselves, isolated from love, life, God.
God’s Will be done. With or without us. And we cannot impose our will on others. We can pray to God, with our heart, our soul, our mind, for our good, for the good of others. This does not change God’s Will. It changes our will. To love God. To love neighbour as ourselves. As Christ teaches.
This is a time of remembrance. Of all the hallowed saints who hallow the Name of God. Of all the souls still yearning for union with God, to be free from all that might be holding them back. This is a time of remembrance, when the horrors of war are being fought anew, rather than remembering the reason to keep faith and hope. Instead, like the elites of their time testing Christ, elites today demand we choose one side, one law, from all others. Choose one thing, so that you can be accused of excluding all others. Continue to create oppressors but mostly victims. No. Treat others as God would have you do. As you yourself would ask to be treated. And then the tricks stop with you. We are called to be saints. We are called to save souls. Ours. Our families’. Our neighbours. Those we can serve. Those we can pray for.
‘Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin, death’ (Romans 5:12).
God did not make death, and He does not delight in the death of the living. For He created all things that they might exist, and the origins or the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. For righteousness is immortal.
Wisdom 1:12-15
Our first parents violated God’s established harmony within all Creation (Genesis 3).
In making themselves the judges of good and evil, taking what is God’s, they mistrusted, they gave up on Divine Life. They committed themselves to spiritual death. Disorder with nature, and physical death, followed. As did the cycle of mistrust, enmity, strife, sin, death, darkening us all.
We must be dressed, ready for service, ready for Passover, like in the reference from Luke’s Gospel (12:35-38; Exodus 12:11). The Passover and Exodus led to a Covenant with God, with a foreshadowing of God’s serving us a heavenly banquet, in restored communion (Exodus 24). The people of God were given the Commandments, to account for and guard from sin (Romans 5:13). Yet we still need God’s Grace to restore us to spiritual life, to bring us back to being children of God, able to be ready for service, ready to share in our Lord’s heavenly Passover banquet. As in the Last Supper, our Lord desires to serve His servants blessed with His grace – ‘I AM among you as the one who serves’ (Luke 22:27).
We must be ready. Clothed in righteousness (Ephesians 4:24).
Are we ready for the Lord’s return?
If you are, then nothing remains but to place all your expectations on the coming of the Redeemer. Resting secure concerning your hope and works, you would immediately open to Him that knocks. When you are aware of your death drawing near, you grow joyful, because of the glory of His reward – Blessed are the servants whom the Lord finds ready, mind open to behold the True Light, when He comes. But they who tremble to depart from the body, has no wish to open to the judge knocking, and dreads to see that Judge whom he remembers to have despised.
The Light of the World, William Holman Hunt. ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me’ (Revelation 3:20).
Let us not slumber through the watches of the night, of our life. Let us desire to serve, and look forward to being served, at the Lord’s heavenly Passover banquet. Let us seek righteousness, and do right, according to God’s Commandments, and according to the grace, light, and Life given us in Christ.
Let all who seek You exult and rejoice in You. May they always say, “God is Great!” – those who love Your rescue. As for me, I am lowly and needy. May the Lord account it for me. My help, he who frees me You are. My God, do not delay.
The state chooses the image and inscription on their coins, we should expect their need to repay in taxes (Matthew 22:15-21). We can hope for the state, in turn, to respect and support the natural societies they are to serve, families, and to guarantee families’ freedom of conscience, education, and religion. State politicians have the choice to free people from captivity and enabling right worship, as Cyrus was anointed by God to redeem the people of God even if he did not realize it (Isaiah 45). Or state politicians may enact evil. God’s Will be done, despite passing passions and politicians.
We are made in the image and likeness of God.
God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… So God created man in His own image… male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27
We give to God what is right and just, His due, our everything.
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.’
Isaiah (25:6-10) describes for us, the Lord’s ultimate, heavenly wedding banquet, uniting all peoples on the Temple mount, rescuing us, taking away all our pain, our disgrace, our sorrow, our fears… He shall wipe the tears from every face, and, giving us all we hope for, we can say with Isaiah, Look, this is our God, in whom we hope, let us exult and rejoice. From our Psalm (23), we will be consoled, anointed… happy, our cups overflowing, with goodness and kindness, in the Lord’s heavenly wedding banquet. And then in our Gospel (Matthew 22), our Lord invites us to this ultimate banquet: Everything is ready, come to the feast.
The Gospel is our printed invitation.
If we are Christian disciples, if we share this faith, then we are the Lord’s servants, like the ones in our Gospel parable.
We are to summon the invited guests – that is, everyone – to the feast.
We can expect the same reception as those in the parable.
But this is what the Lord asks of us. This is our wedding garment (Matthew 22:11; 3:8; Revelation 19:8).
We need our faith.
We also need to serve our Lord’s calling, to invite, to proclaim His truly good news, to do the righteous deeds of the saints in the heavenly wedding banquet.
Otherwise, we’ll have no good answer, we’ll be reduced to silence, when at the banquet, the Lord asks, ‘friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment’ (Matthew 22:12).
