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The Twin Light of the Eyes of the Body

On this Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, here is an appropriate homily by Saint Leo the Great.

When the twelve Apostles, after receiving through the Holy Spirit the power of speaking with all tongues, had distributed the world into parts among themselves, and undertaken to instruct it in the Gospel, the most blessed Peter, chief of the Apostolic band, was appointed to the citadel of the Roman empire, that the light of Truth which was being displayed for the salvation of all the nations, might spread itself more effectively throughout the body of the world from the head itself. What nation had not representatives then living in this city; or what peoples did not know what Rome had learned? Here it was that the tenets of philosophy must be crushed, here that the follies of earthly wisdom must be dispelled, here that the cult of demons must be refuted, here that the blasphemy of all idolatries must be rooted out, here where the most persistent superstition had gathered together all the various errors which had anywhere been devised.

To this city then, most blessed Apostle Peter, you do not fear to come, and when the Apostle Paul, the partner of your glory, was still busied with regulating other churches, entered this forest of roaring beasts, this deep, stormy ocean with greater boldness than when you walked upon the sea. And you who had been frightened by the high priest's maid in the house of Caiaphas, had no fear of Rome the mistress of the world. It was the force of love that conquered the reasons for fear: and you did not think those to be feared whom you had undertaken to love. But this feeling of fearless affection you had even then surely conceived when the profession of your love for the Lord was confirmed by the mystery of the thrice-repeated question. And nothing else was demanded of this your earnest purpose than that you should bestow the food wherewith you had yourself been enriched, on feeding His sheep whom you loved.

Your confidence also was increased by many miraculous signs, by many gifts of grace, by many proofs of power. You had already taught the people, who from the number of the circumcised had believed: you had already founded the Church at Antioch, where first the dignity of the Christian name arose: you had already instructed Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, in the laws of the Gospel message: and, without doubt as to the success of the work, with full knowledge of the short span of your life carried the trophy of Christ's cross into the citadel of Rome.

Then came also your blessed brother-Apostle Paul, the vessel of election, and the special teacher of the Gentiles, and was associated with you at a time when all innocence, all modesty, all freedom was in jeopardy under Nero's rule. Whose fury, inflamed by excess of all vices, hurled him headlong into such a fiery furnace of madness that he was the first to assail the Christian name with a general persecution, as if God's Grace could be quenched by the death of saints, whose greatest gain it was to win eternal happiness by contempt of this fleeting life. Precious, therefore, in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints: nor can any degree of cruelty destroy the religion which is founded on the mystery of Christ's Cross. Persecution does not diminish but increase the Church, and the Lord's field is clothed with an ever richer crop.

And over this band, dearly-beloved, whom God has set forth for our example in patience and for our confirmation in the faith, there must be rejoicing everywhere in the commemoration of all the saints, but of these two Fathers of excellence we must rightly make our boast in louder joy, for God's grace has raised them to so high a place among the members of the Church, that He has set them like the twin light of the eyes in the body, whose Head is Christ. About their merits and virtues, which pass all power of speech, we must not make distinctions, because they were equal in their election , alike in their toils, undivided in their death. But as we have proved for ourselves, and our forefathers maintained, we believe, and are sure that, amid all the toils of this life, we must always be assisted in obtaining God's mercy by the prayers of special interceders, that we may be raised by the Apostles' merits in proportion as we are weighed down by our own sins.

Blessed John of Spain

Today on the Carthusian calendar is the feast of Blessed John of Spain. Here’s what a Carthusian monk tells us about Blessed John:

Blessed John was born in 1123 in the kingdom of Leon in Spain. At the age of thirteen he left his country for France, both to escape the Moslems and for the purpose of studies. He settled in the town of Arles, in Southern France. At sixteen he felt drawn to the monastic life and entered a monastery in the vicinity. After some years, he heard about the recently founded Order of the Carthusians and their monastery of Montrieux not far away, founded in 1118, five years before he himself was born. Drawn to their austere and entirely contemplative life, he joined the Carthusians there. Once a Carthusian, he was ordained a priest, was named sacristan and eventually — still a man in his twenties — elected Prior. We may assume he was precocious on the natural level, but even more so by the early maturity of his virtues.

The nuns of the monastery of Prébayon in the vicinity, following the Rules of Saint Caesarius of Arles and of Saint Benedict, were so impressed with the fervor of Montrieux under John’s leadership that they asked to be admitted to our Order, which till then had consisted only of monks. The Prior of our Mother house, la Grande Chartreuse, and Superior General of the Order, Saint Anthelm, authorized this. He asked John to adapt the Customs of Guigo, which were our Rule at that time, to the nuns. He did so and this was the beginning of the female branch of our Order.

Various difficulties at Montrieux lead to his retirement from the priorship and he moved to la Grande Chartreuse in 1150. Just then, a noble lord in neighbouring Savoy asked for a monastery of Carthusians on his lands. Saint Anthelm saw in Blessed John the man of Providence. He sent him to make the foundation in Savoy, which was eventually given the name of le Reposoir. There he governed wisely as Prior for some years.

On June 25, 1160 John died, not yet forty years old. Through unusual circumstances he was interred not inside the enclosure, as the custom is, but outside. In fact, during his priorate, two servants of the monastery, having died in the mountains, under an avalanche of snow, had been interred in an inappropriate place, outside the enclosure, for which John had been reproved. To make amends he had made his monks swear that after his death, they would bury him at the same place as the two servants. This, however, permitted John’s tomb — with his renown for sanctity — to become the object of popular pilgrimages. The faithful prayed at his tomb and many miracles occurred in the course of the centuries, particularly cures of malignant fever. In 1864 Blessed Pius IX approved the cult of Blessed John of Spain, venerated since time immemorial.

O Pretiosum et Admirandum Convivium

Today’s reflection comes from Saint Thomas Aquinas. It is taken from the Second Nocturn at the hour of Matins in the 1961 Roman Breviary for today’s feast of Corpus Christi.

The immense blessings of divine favour, which have been showered upon the people of God, confer on them an inestimable dignity. What great nation is there, or ever was, that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us! For the only-begotten Son of God, willing that we should share in His Divinity, assumed our nature. He was made man that He might make man divine. And what is more, He gave back to us for our salvation, all that He had assumed belonging to us. For He offered to God the Father, for our reconciliation, His own Body as a Victim on the altar of the Cross. He shed His Blood, at one and the same time, a ransom and a purification, that being redeemed from wretched slavery we might be washed clean of all sins. But that the remembrance of so great a favour might remain with us, He left to be taken by the faithful, under the appearance of bread and wine, His Body for Food and His Blood for Drink.

O precious and wonderful banquet, health-giving and full of all delight! For what can be more precious than this banquet, in which not the flesh of calves and goats, as in the Old Law, but Christ, true God, is set before us to eat? What is more wonderful than this sacrament? For in it the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, and therefore Christ, perfect God and Man, is contained under the appearance of a small amount of bread and wine. He is therefore eaten by the faithful, but in no way is He mangled. Indeed when the Sacrament is divided, He remains whole under each particle. The accidents, however, remain here without any subject. And this, that faith may be exercised when what is visible is invisibly received, hidden under another appearance; furthermore, that the senses, which judge of the accidents according to appearances, may be preserved from error.

No sacrament is more health-giving than this one, in which sins are cleansed, virtues increased, and the mind enriched with abundance of all spiritual gifts. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all, may profit all. Finally, no one can adequately express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual sweetness is tasted in its source, and the memory is recalled of that most excellent love that Christ showed in His Passion. Therefore, to impress the immensity of this love more deeply on the hearts of the faithful, at the Last Supper, after celebrating the Passover with His disciples, and about to leave this world and go to the Father, He instituted this sacrament as a lasting memorial of His Passion. It fulfilled the foreshadowing of ancient rites, and was the greatest of the miracles He worked, which He left as a unique comfort to His disciples saddened by His absence.

An Obligation to Honour the Heart of Jesus

Pope Saint Pius X referred to him as the ‘father, doctor, and apostle of the liturgical cult of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary’. He is Saint John Eudes. Here are some of his thoughts on the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:

The first cause of those most painful Wounds in the Sacred Heart of Our Redeemer is our sins. We read in the life of Saint Catherine of Genoa that one day God let her see the horror of one tiny venial sin. She assures us that, although this vision lasted but a moment, she saw nevertheless an object so frightening that the blood froze in her veins and she swooned away in an agony that would have killed her if God had not preserved her to relate to others what she had seen. Wherefore she declared that if she were in the very depths of a sea of flaming fire and it were in her power to be set free, on condition that she should once more behold such a spectacle, she would choose to remain rather than to escape. If the sight of the smallest venial sin brought this saint to such a pass, what must we think of the state to which Our Saviour was reduced by seeing all the sins of the universe? He had them continually before His Eyes, and His vision being infinitely more powerful than that of Saint Catherine, He could behold infinitely more horror.

He saw the immeasurable insult and dishonour it caused His Father; He saw the damnation of a countless number of souls resulting from those sins. As He had infinite love for His Father and His creatures, the sight of all those sins rent His Heart with countless Wounds, such that if we were able to count all the sins of men, which are more numerous than the drops of water in the sea, we would then be able to count the Wounds of the loving Heart of Jesus.

The second cause of His Wounds is the infinite love of His Sacred Heart for all of His children, and His constant vision of all the afflictions and sufferings that are to happen to them, especially all the torments that His holy martyrs are to suffer. When a mother watches her beloved child suffering, she feels the pain more keenly than the child. Our Saviour’s love for us is so tremendous that if the love of all parents were centred in a single heart, it would not represent even a spark of the love for us that burns in His Heart. Our pains and sorrows, ever present to His vision and seen most clearly and distinctly, were so many Wounds bleeding in His paternal Heart. These Wounds were so painful and deep that they would have caused His death a thousand times over, even immediately after His birth, if He had not miraculously preserved Himself, because during His whole earthly life His Sacred Heart was continually pierced by many mortal Wounds of love.

Therefore we have the greatest obligation to honour the gracious Heart that sustained so many Wounds of love for us. With what affection should we embrace, and endure all our afflictions, out of love for Jesus, our Saviour, since He first bore them for love of us! Should they not be most sweet to us, since they have already passed through His most gentle and loving Heart? What a horror we should have of our sins that have caused so many Wounds and such intense grief to the divine Heart of our Redeemer!

Let us learn from the foregoing example that it is not our Redeemer's fault if we are lost. There are hearts so hard that, even if Jesus Himself were to come down from heaven to preach to them and they were to see Him covered with Wounds and bathed in His Blood, they would still not be converted. O my God, let us not be one of them, but give us the grace to open our ears to the voice of all the sacred Wounds of Your Body and Your Heart, which are so many mouths through which You call us unceasingly: ‘Redite, prævaricatores, ad cor -- Return, transgressors, to the heart’, which means to My Heart that is all yours, since I have given it entirely to you. Return to that most loving Heart of your Father, which is full of love and mercy for you, which will receive you home, heaping upon you blessings.

Of all the divine perfections mirrored in the Sacred Heart of our Saviour, we should have a very special devotion to divine mercy and we should endeavour to engrave its image on our heart. To this end three things must be done. The first is to pardon with all our heart and promptly forget the offenses done to us by our neighbour. The second is to have compassion on his bodily sufferings, and to relieve and help him. The third is to be compassionate toward the spiritual misfortunes of our brethren, which are much more deserving of our commiseration than corporal ills. For this reason we ought to have great pity on the numbers of wretched souls who have no pity on themselves, using our prayers, our example, and our teaching to safeguard them from the eternal torments of hell.

Sanctissimæ Trinitatis

First Reading, Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
Saint Thomas Aquinas concluded [from the original Latin]: “Quod impossibile est per rationem naturalem ad cognitionem Trinitatis divinarum Personarum pervenire” -- “It is impossible by natural reason to attain to the knowledge of the divine Persons of the Trinity” (Summa Theologicæ). Interesting, though, is that Saint Thomas believed that the existence of God can be reasoned. Arguably the greatest theologian the Church has ever had, Saint Thomas had a most peculiar but incredibly fair way of presenting his arguments: He would state his case, answer all oppositional objections and even produce objections no one ever thought of and answer those too. As far as the Trinity being “three Persons” Saint Thomas said that this doesn’t mean three separate individuals in the subject of God. In other words, the Trinity is not as sometimes portrayed in artwork with the Father as the older, white-haired Man with the patriarchal beard, while the Son is the younger, brown-haired Man, and the Holy Spirit is the Dove. Saint Thomas thinks of the Trinity as relationships within one God. These relationships within God depict His knowledge of Himself and His Love. This means that the Paternity of God is God. God’s superior knowledge of Himself is the Filialness or Son of God and the relationship of Love between God and His Self-knowledge is the Holy Spirit. The Angelic Doctor explains it this way: “Quicumque enim intelligit, ex hoc ipso quod intelligit, procedit aliquid intra ipsum, quod est conceptio rei intellectæ, ex vi intellectiva proveniens, et ex eius notitia procedens. Quam quidem conceptionem vox significat; et dicitur verbum cordis significatum verbo vocis” – “Whenever we understand, by the very fact of understanding, there proceeds something within us, which is a conception of the object understood, issuing from our intellectual power, and proceeding from our knowledge. This conception is signified by the spoken word; and it is called the word of the heart signified by the word of the voice” (ibid.). Granted, that explanation from the gifted mind of Saint Thomas Aquinas is not an easy read but the truth is that no one possesses the intellectual capacity to fully comprehend and hence define the Trinity. The Most Holy Trinity is a great, sacred mystery. There are some interesting comparisons in this First Reading with events in the New Testament. Moses, early in the morning, ventures off to meet his Lord and receive His commands which were to be engraved on stone tablets. In Saint Mark’s Gospel, Jesus, early in the morning, went off to a lonely place to pray (cf. Mark 1:35) just before He was to preach God’s commands which were to be engraved on the tablets of the human heart. As Moses is confronted with the Presence of His Lord he bows down to the ground in worship. Likewise, on a mountain, Jesus is Transfigured and the disciples fall on their faces (cf. Matthew 17:1-7). Moses begs for God’s pardon and asks Him to receive His people as His own. Jesus Christ makes the ultimate Sacrifice, securing our pardon and conferring upon us the joy of being received as God’s own sons and daughters. No longer will we find scrolls and tablets in our Tabernacle. Our Tabernacle now contains not only the New and Everlasting Covenant but the Covenant Maker Himself. John the Baptist proclaimed that God could raise children of Abraham from the stones (cf. Matthew 3:9). And from the stone tablets of the covenant is raised a Child of Abraham and a fulfillment of the covenant Who is the Son of God. In the desert the devil tempts Jesus and tells Him to turn the stones into loaves (cf. Matthew 4:3). Not even Satan could have foreseen that the Almighty’s Law and Identity written on stone tablets would eventually stay with God’s people in a more intimate way as the Bread of Life.

Second Reading, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Saint Paul writes, “Rejoice.” In the ancient style of writing, the Greeks customarily ended their writings this way. Paul, a Jew, apparently understood this when writing this letter to Corinth, a Greek city-state; and this is the end of his second letter to the Corinthians. Greeting “one another with a holy kiss” was customary for Jews and soon spread into Gentile Christian communities; and since it was a part of their ordinary living, the custom soon made its way into ecclesiastical assemblies. Interestingly, in the ancient world it was quite common for people to embrace each other before they shared a meal. And that custom moved into the sharing of a much greater Meal -- the Eucharist. In the Latin Vulgate this letter closes with the word, “Amen.” This is not found in the original Greek and actually was added by the Church of Corinth. The Holy Spirit did remarkable things at Corinth. This was a city that lived under the ideals of paganism and vulgar excesses. It took only four short years for the Gospel to make a life altering change in this community. With Saint Paul as the Paraclete’s instrument, the Corinthians began to receive lessons on morality which converted their hearts.

Gospel, John 3:16-18
You’re familiar with the old adage, “It is better to give than to receive.” True, but who could argue about the beauty of receiving when considering the riches we have received because God “gave His only Son”? The teaching of the Fathers of the Church is that Christ was not God’s Son only by reason of the Incarnation. He was the only begotten Son before God sent Him into the world as He is the Word from all eternity. Christ is and always has been True God and by the Incarnation also is True Man. Condemnation is not a popular subject but it cannot be completely ignored. Saint Augustine of Canterbury teaches: “Why is Christ called the Savior of the world, unless from the obligation He took upon Himself at His birth? He has come like a good physician, effectually to save mankind. The man, therefore, destroys himself who refuses to follow the prescriptions of the Physician.” As sinners, we all occasionally step off the path that Christ has put us on but our Lord remedies that through the sacraments. Condemnation is inflicted upon oneself and not brought upon by God. It is an obstinate refusal of God’s love, grace and mercy. And even if one chooses such obstinacy as their life’s path, who would dare underestimate or even attempt to comprehend the superabundance of love, grace and mercy that may arrive at the hour of death?

The Heart of Jesus Performs All Things with Harmony

This reflection on the Sacred Heart is passed on to us from a seventeenth-century Carthusian monk named Dom Polycarpe de la Rivière. His religious life began as a novitiate with the Jesuits at Lyons, when not long after he asked to be admitted into the Carthusian Order. He made his profession on 1 May 1609. He was the author of many works. His writing career as a religious was more unusual than most. He wrote everything in French much to the dislike of his superiors who wanted him to write in Latin because he would then remain more faithful to the Carthusian ‘hidden life’, since Latin works at that time were inaccessible to the general public. He was Prior of the Charterhouse at Bordeaux and then later at Bonpas near Avignon.

‘Now then I will run him [King Saul] through with my spear . . .’ ~ 1 Samuel 26:8

A soldier pierced the Side of Jesus with his spear. Ah! Now can you clearly behold the divinity of Jesus through the torn veil of His humanity! Now that the beautiful Face of my Jesus is bent towards you in token of mercy, know that by the death you have given to His life, He will give life to your death. As for me, I can live no longer since my life is dead, and I can see no more my living Jesus, Who was the light of my eyes and the life of my heart.

It is not, however, enough for your cruelty to see Him in this sad condition. What! Fierce madman, will you also rob Him of His Heart, the centre of His love, by this wanton thrust of the spear into His Side? O lance, spare at least my soul and cause not all my blood to flow away through the wound you make there! Do you not know that my life and soul are hidden in this Heart? Do you not understand that it is there I live and breathe? Pitiless lance, you wound, you bruise me; thinking to strike only One, you pierce me with Him. O unrelenting lance! Is your thirst then so acute? You have my breast, my body, it is enough; spare, I pray you, this Heart, and let my veins be emptied and all my blood poured out to save this Heart of Jesus, the love of my soul.

But what are you doing, my soul, in offering your heart for that of your God? Would you live without a heart, and shut yourself out of heaven? To enjoy the latter, it is necessary to open the former. I know you will say that it is from this divine Heart, and not from heaven, that you have taken your essence and your first form, and that you cannot do without its love, for you are like the moon, which of itself is not visible, and sends forth no light which it does not borrow from the sun. But reflect also that this Heart of Jesus performs all things with harmony and consideration, and that, being the first of the living and the dead, the Chief of the elect, and the Prototype of all perfection, it must be opened thus in order to become the Door of Paradise.

Do you now reproach the iron, which is the blessed key of your felicity? Oh no! Away with indignant thoughts and revengeful designs! I love you, glorious iron. I honor and venerate you as a cause of my salvation, the door-keeper of my everlasting glory. O Jesus! Who will make You all things to me and in me? Who will make me to possess You without fear of losing You? Or rather, who will transform me into iron, and the iron into a lance, that I may be plunged forever into Your Heart, which is the delight of mine and the destruction of my enemies?

Ah! Once only, only once, and that forever, so that I may never come out of it again! Let the good things of this world vanish away. They are only mire, scum and corruption, perpetual figures of death, and not to be compared to the greatness of my love which only longs for and clings to this Heart of my soul, to this Soul of my heart.

O God! When can I reach it? When shall I be cast into it? Do You not fear the vehemence of my desires, the strength of my affection? Ah! I am no longer an arrow, but the spear which can once more open Your Side and pierce Your Heart as sharply as that of Longinus. And who shall keep me back? Who shall drive me away, since it is so much greater a benefit to do this than to refrain from it? Yes indeed, and whilst I say it, O Holy Lamb, I marvel at the sweetness of Your loving kindness, which gives back life to him who slays You and pierces Your Heart.