Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Monday Paul Newman Thomas Merton

Night Office and Mass.

Fr. Raymond commented at the Introduction to the community Mass this morning, Monday 5^th Week. 

He said;

“In the Reading at Vigils from Bl. John H. Newman we heard that all the gifts and graces we have are gifts from God, on the other hand we must realize that all the fault and  failings we have are from ourselves.”

After thought, another alternative Reading is from Thomas Merton. It is quite illuminating, measuring up to Newman on the commentary on 1 Corinthians.

Night Office

First Readng         1 Corinthians 1 1:18-1

Second Reading: 

Eusbius of Emesa.

Alternative

Newman: Sermon 10. Righteousness not of us, but in us   

"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." 1 Cor. i. 30, 31.

http://www.newmanreader.org/Works/parochial/volume5/sermon10.html

[Our bodily powers and limbs also come from God, but they are in such sense part of our original formation, or (if I may say so) of our essence, that though we ought ever to lift up our hearts in gratitude to God while we use them, yet we use them as our instruments, organs and ministers. They spring from us, and (as I may say) hold of us, and we use them for our own purposes. Well, this seems to have been the way in which the Corinthians used their supernatural gifts, viz. as if they {130} were parts of themselves,—as natural faculties, instead of influences in them, but not of them, from the Giver of all good,—not with awe, not with reverence, not with worship. They considered themselves, not members of the Kingdom of saints, and dependent on an unseen Lord, but mere members of an earthly community, still rich men, still scribes, still philosophers, still disputants, who had the addition of certain gifts, who had aggrandized their existing position by the reception of Christianity. They became proud, when they should have been thankful. They had forgotten that to be members of the Church they must become as little children; that they must give up all, that they might win Christ; that they must become poor in spirit to gain the true riches; that they must put off philosophy, if they would speak wisdom among the perfect.] Edit – missing.

 And, therefore, St. Paul reminds them that "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble arc called;" and that all true power, all true wisdom flows from Christ, who is "the power of God, and the wisdom of God;" and that all who are Christians indeed, renounce their own power and their own wisdom, and come to Him that He may be the Source and Principle of their power, and of their wisdom; that they may depend on Him, and hold of Him, not of themselves; that they may exist in Him, or have Him in them; that they may be (as it were) His members; that they may glory simply in Him, not in themselves. For, whereas the wisdom of the world is but foolishness in God's sight, and the power of the world but weakness, God had set forth His Only-begotten Son to be the First-born of creation, and the standard and {131} original of true life; to be a wisdom of God and a power of God, and a "righteousness, sanctification, and redemption" of God, to all those who are found in Him. "Of Him," says he, "are ye in Christ Jesus, who is made unto us a wisdom from God, namely, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."

In every age of the Church, not in the primitive age only, Christians have been tempted to pride themselves on their gifts, or at least to forget that they were gifts, and to take them for granted. Ever have they been tempted to forget their own responsibilities, their having received what they are bound to improve, and the duty of fear and trembling, while improving it. On the other hand, how they ought to behave under a sense of their own privileges, St. Paul points out when he says to the Philippians, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." [Phil. ii. 13.] God is in you for righteousness, for sanctification, for redemption, through the Spirit of His Son, and you must use His influences, His operations, not as your own (God forbid!), not as you would use your own mind or your own limbs, irreverently, but as His presence in you. All your knowledge is from Him; all good thoughts are from Him; all power to pray is from Him; your Baptism is from Him; the consecrated elements are from Him; your growth in holiness is from Him. You are not your own, you have been bought with a price, and a mysterious power is working {132} in you. Oh that we felt all this as well as were convinced of it!

This then is one of the first elements of Christian knowledge and a Christian spirit, to refer all that is good in us, all that we have of spiritual life and righteousness, to Christ our Saviour;

[to believe that He works in us, or, to put the same thing more pointedly, to believe that saving truth, life, light, and holiness are not of us, though they must be in us. I shall now enlarge on each of these two points.

1. Whatever we have, is not of us, but of God. This surely it will not take many words to prove. Our unassisted nature is represented in Scripture as the source of ]

Alternative Reading

From A Christian Looks at Zen by Thomas Merton. pp. 112-114.

In the first two chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians Saint Paul distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom: one which consists in the knowledge of words and statements, a rational, dialectical wisdom, and another which is at once a matter of paradox and of experience, and goes beyond the reach of reason. To attain to this spiritual wisdom, one must first be liberated from servile dependence on the wisdom of speech. This liberation is effected by the word of the cross which makes no sense to those who cling to their own familiar views and habits of thought and is a means by which God destroys the wisdom of the wise. The word of the cross is in fact completely baffling and disconcerting both to the Greeks with their philosophy and to the Jews with their well interpreted law. But when one has been freed from dependence on verbal formulas and conceptual structures, the cross becomes a source of power. This power emanates from the foolishness of God and it also makes use of foolish instruments (the apostles). On the other hand, he who can accept this paradoxical "foolishness" experiences in himself a secret and mysterious power, which is the power of Christ living in him as the ground of a totally new life and a new being.

Here it is essential to remember that for a Christian the word of the cross is nothing theoretical, but a stark and existential experience of union with Christ in his death in order to share in his resurrection. To fully "hear" and "receive" the word of the cross means much more than simple assent to the dogmatic proposition that Christ died for our sins. It means to be nailed to the cross with Christ, so that the ego-self is no longer the principle of our deepest actions, which now proceed from Christ living in us. I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me. To receive the word of the cross means the acceptance of a complete self-emptying, a "kenosis," in union with the self-emptying of Christ obedient unto death. It is essential to true Christianity that this experience of the cross and of self-emptying should be central in the life of the Christian so that he or she may fully receive the Holy Spirit and know (again by experience) all the riches of God in and through Christ.     

Responsory          1 Cor 1:18; Gal 6:14

The message of the cross is folly to those on the way to ruin, but

+ to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

V. Far be it from me to boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. + To us who ...

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