October 30, 2020

St. Marcellus

We justly honour the martyrs, whom God himself honours. Martyrdom is the most heroic act of divine love, and the most perfect and entire sacrifice man can make of himself to God. Of all the goods of this life man has nothing more precious and dear than his life and honour. And what stronger proof can he give of his fidelity to the law of God than to embrace with joy an ignominious and cruel death rather than consent to sin? God proportions his rewards and crowns to the measure of our sufferings and love for him. How great, then, is the glory, how abundant the recompense which attends the martyrs! They rejoiced to see their torments redoubled manifold, because they had before their eyes the incomparably greater increase of grace, divine love, and eternal glory. If we shrink under the least sufferings, it is plain our faith and our idea of everlasting bliss must be very weak, and our love faint and imperfect.

November 1st – 2020

As we near the end of the liturgical year, we start to hear the messages we need at the end of things. Jesus is preparing us to enter Paradise, but our understanding falls  short of God’s way. The feast metaphor, in favour of the outcasts, and the rejection of those who had believed themselves the ones worthy can be profoundly troubling to those of us who believe and are working hard to be faithful.