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Twenty-third Sunday After Pentecost
by Leonard Goffine, 1871


The Introit of the Mass consoles and incites us to confidence in God who is so benevolent towards us and will not let us pine away in tribulation. The Lord saith: I entertain thoughts of peace, not of affliction: you shall call on me, and I will hear you: and bring back your captive people from all places. Jer. xxix. 11.) Thou, O Lord, hast blessed Thy land: Thou hast brought back the captive children of Jacob. (Ps. lxxxiv.) Glory, &c.

PRAYER OF THE CHURCH.Pardon, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the sins of Thy people: that we may be delivered by Thy goodness from the guilt we have contracted by our own weakness. Through our Lord &c.

EPISTLE, (Philipp. iii. 17 - 21.; iv. l - 3.)  Brethren: Be followers of me, and observe them who walk so as you have our model. For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping) that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame: who mind earthly things. But our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the operation whereby also He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, and most desired, my joy, and my crown: so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beg of Evodia, and I beseech Syntyche, to be of one mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also my sincere companion, help those women that have laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement and the rest of my fellow labourers, whose names are in the book of life.

EXPLANATION

There are unhappily many Christians, as St. Paul, weeping, complains, who are declared enemies of Christ's cross, who do not wish to mortify their senses, but only serve their appetites, who only think of gratifying their lusts, and, as it were, find their only pleasure, even seek their honor in despising the way of Jesus and His saints on the narrow path of the cross, of mortification and humiliation, and, wallow like swine in the mire of the most shameful lusts. But what will be the end of these people? Eternal perdition! For he who does not crucify the flesh with its lusts, does not belong to Christ. (Gal. v. 24.) He who does not bear the marks of the mortification of Jesus in his body, in him the life of Christ shall not be manifested, (ii. Cor. iv. 10.) He who does not walk in heaven during his life-time, that is, who does not direct his thoughts and desires heavenward and despise the world and its vanities, will not find the entrance to heaven after his death.

ASPIRATION. Would to God, I could say with St. Paul: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal. vi. 14.)




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GOSPEL. (Matt. ix. 18 - 26.) At That Time: As Jesus was speaking to the multitude: Behold, a certain ruler came up, and adored Him, saying: Lord, my daughter is even now dead; but come lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus rising up followed him, with His disciples. And behold, a woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him, and touched the hem of His garment. For she said within herself: If I shall touch only His garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, and saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout, He said: Give place: for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, He went in and took her by the hand. And the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country.




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INSTRUCTIONS:

I. Filial was the faith, unbounded the confidence, profound the humility of this woman, and, therefore, she received health also. Learn from this, how pleasing is filial faith, firm confidence, and sincere humility to the Lord; let your prayer always be penetrated by these three virtues, and you will receive whatever you ask for.

II. The devout Louis de Ponte refers the conduct of this woman to our conduct at the holy Communion, and says: Christ wished to remain with us in the most holy Eucharist, clothed with the garment of the sacramental species of bread, that he who receives His sacred flesh and blood, and brings his soul in connection with it, may be freed from the bloody flow of evil concupiscence. If you wish to obtain the integrity of your soul, as did this woman the health of the body, imitate her. Receive the flesh and blood of Jesus with the most profound humility, with the firmest confidence in His power and goodness, and in you also the fountain of sin, evil concupiscence, will be dried up.

III. Jesus called three dead persons to life, the twelve years old daughter of the ruler of the ѕуηαgσgυє Jairus, of whom there is mention made in this gospel, the young man at Naim (Luke vii.), and Lazarus. (John iv.) Commentators say, that by these three dead persons three classes of sinners may be understood: by the maiden those who sin in their youth through weakness and fragility, but touched by the grace of God, perceive their fall and easily rise up again through penance, like this maiden raised up by the hand by Jesus; by the young man at Nairn those are to be understood, who repeat the sins and permit them to become habits; these require greater grace, more trouble and severer penance, by Lazarus the public and obdurate habitual sinners are to be understood, who can be raised to spiritual life only by extraordinary grace of God and by public and most severe penance as Jesus also raised Lazarus publicly with prayer and tears and loud calling.

IV. Christ did not raise the maiden, until the minstrels and noisy multitude were removed, by which He wished to teach us, that the raising or conversion of a soul cannot be accomplished in the midst of the noise and turmoil of temporal cares and idle pleasures and associations.



 INSTRUCTION CONCERNING RIDICULE AND DERISION.
And they laughed him to scorn. (Matt. ix. 24.)

When Jesus told the minstrels and the crowd, that the girl was not dead, but sleeping, they laughed at Him, because they understood not what He said. Thus do carnal minded men generally at priests and ministers of God, if these by their words and examples admonish them to despise honors, riches and pleasures , and to embrace the love of poverty, humility and mortification: for this is an unintelligible and hateful language to them, at which they laugh and mock, just as they do when they hear, that death is a sleep, from which we shalt sometime awake and shall be obliged to appear at the judgment-seat. But woe to such scoffers by whose scoffs so many souls are led from the path of virtue! What the devil formerly accomplished by tyrants in estranging men from God and a lively faith in Him and His Church, he seems to wish to accomplish in our days by the mockery, scoffs, and blasphemies of wicked men; for at no period have piety and virtue, holy simplicity and childlike faith, faithful adherence to the holy Roman Church and her laws, reverence for her head and her ministers, the priests, been more mocked at, derided and blasphemed. And, unhappily, many permit themselves to be induced by mockery to abondon piety, to omit the public practice of their faith, to conceal their Catholic persuasion, and to lead a lukewarm, unchurchlike, indeed, sinful life. But woe to the scoffers! they are hateful to God (Prov. iii.32.) who will one day require all the souls perverted by them, from their hands. Do not let these scoffers turn you aside from your adherence to your holy faith, and from the public practice of it, and from zeal for virtue, remember the words of Jesus: He who denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven. (Matt. x. 33.) Console yourself with Jesus who was scoffed and blasphemed for your sake, and often say within yourself:

I know, my most amiable Jesus, that the servant cannot be more than his master. Since Thou wert so often sneered at, mocked and blasphemed, why should I wonder, if I am laughed at and mocked for my faith in Thee and Thy Church and for the practice of virtue!










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