Weekday Readings

2025 Fifth Week of Easter April 19 to April 2025 Monday John 14.21-26 "Why, O Lord, are you not more revealed to the world?" That question constantly haunts us in our prayer. You show yourself to us in prayer, but we don't see you as readily in the world. Of course, there is an answer that theologians give with their theory of the "anonymous Christian." Christ is manifest in a hidden way in all the good consciences shown in loving behavior. Yes, but that's not what we experience in our contemplative prayer. Jesus is not anonymous. He is our life, our light, our love, the way, the truth. He is the very substance of our substance through participation in the divine life in grace. That is what we yearn for in our prayer that Jesus be known and loved explicitly by all individuals. Will not that be the final condition of the cosmos: All restored in Christ for the Father? Yes. Amen. Jesus gives no answer directly to the question in this Gospel. That is not ours to know. The Holy Spirit holds us in remembrance that is the divine presence and it penetrates every fiber of our being. If the divine Presence enveloping all is not experienced yet visibly among all peoples, this Presence is at the center of our prayer. What we receive is the invitation and the command. The invitation is to love and to abide. The command is to be faithful. It is more than a command. It is our life. To live consciously in Christ in the Father through the Spirit is the summit of our whole existence as it will be the All for eternity. Tuesday John 14.27-31 Peace, says St. Augustine, is the tranquility of order. Peace of soul is our internal harmony, the coming together of all disparate parts into a unity that enhances the whole. The whole is the person in his or her identity and uniqueness. This is Jesus' legacy: Peace I leave you. But then Jesus goes further. It is "My peace" that He gives you. It is not the general notion of peace alone. It is much deeper. It is beyond what the world can give and can understand. By the “world” Jesus here means the secular world as it considers itself to subsist in itself, and to be sufficient unto itself to meet all its needs. Therefore, the secular world cannot understand the peace of Jesus. The gift of Jesus' peace is his relationship with the Father. The Father is the all of Jesus. For that reason, Jesus calls his Father, greater, even though he is one with the Father in divinity. The Father is greater because it is from the Father that the Son proceeds. And Jesus in his humanity is directed to the Father fully and absolutely.. The Evil One is completely other than the Son but the Son in the manner of his death willingly submits to the force of the world controlled by Satan—“the ruler of this world.” Christ's peace triumphs in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our prayer is always in peace because it is in the simplicity of total surrender beyond the comings and goings of our thoughts. It is peace within the world because at the radical center of creation, Christ has conquered the world. Wednesday John 15.1-8 Prayer is the expression of conscious union with God as if a branch would suddenly be aware of its union with the vine. Prayer also facilitates the necessary pruning of the vine. There is a dual motion in God's embracing us in prayer. First, he allows us to penetrate into the very Center of God which is the Holy Trinity. Second, God penetrates into the deepest parts of our soul to our very personal identity. He enters there to prune us, to purge us, and to cleanse us of all that is false and destructive. In that way of praying we live and abide in Christ. The vine is deep in the ground to receive the nutrients of life. It is also turned to the sun in its leaves. The vine must search in both directions. We are an attended-to and cared-for vine. We are not a wild vine. We belong in the garden of a solicitous vine dresser. Prayer brings us into God and brings God into us, all under the pruning action of the Father. Thursday John 15.9-11 This very short, concise Gospel is often used at Nuptial Masses. The two words, “Love and Joy,” are the two themes of this selection. These two words very much occur on wedding cards and invitations. So let us remember nuptial love is patterned after the love of the Trinity for the Church. The Trinitarian love of the Father and the Son is given to the Church: Abide in my love. The Church is brought as a bride to God for mystical union based on love and the gift of mutual joy. The experience of love and joy is heightened in the Paschal Season. The Risen Jesus is at the center of the Church and at the same time makes the living members mystically abide in the Trinity. This is the joy that Jesus shares with us now in the Church through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The other key word is commandments. The pursuit of love and joy can easily disintegrate into sentimentality and sensuous, destructive self-love when the will gives up the struggle in fortitude to be faithful to the will of the Father expressed in the commandments of the Gospel. Prayer must be rooted in desire to be faithful to the path given by Christ through the Church. The infinite longitude of love and joy comes only from the reality of the narrow way of obedience. Seemingly narrow only in the moment of surrender, but infinite in the opening into the life of God. Jesus warns us that the path is broad and easy that leads to destruction. Friday John 15.12-17 The daily, practical, sacrificial love in service to others is a gift that comes from the Trinity. It is Jesus' love for us on the cross that becomes ours to be shared with others. We are friends because we have rested on the bosom of Christ and have drunk deeply from his heart. He has shared with us all that he lives with the Father. We are friends, not only servants. Love is a free gift. Jesus has chosen us in the free gift of grace. There is nothing we could have done to have caused this friendship. It is the divine sap of the vine running through our spiritual veins. It bears fruit in our practical love for others. It bears fruit in our witness to Jesus and the power of salvation which he brings to the world through our friendship with God. Saturday John 15.18-21 Our love-life with God in Christ must not be sentimental. It is not a part of the conventional wisdom of our dominant culture. This is especially true in being an orthodox Catholic. We are orthodox if we accept the Magisterium and allow its truth to germinate within us. Remember that Jesus said there is an absolute relationship between love and commandments. There is no love if there is no behavior that reflects the moral code of living given us in the New Testament which the Magisterium holds out to us as a light in the darkness. If we have this ecclesial attitude then we can expect the hatred of the world. The term “the world” includes under that Gospel category all those who are intentionally outside of the light of Christ and who have institutionalized their opposition to the Gospel as proclaimed in the Church. Many dissident Catholics become part of the siege because they can easily rally for what the world wants in opposition to the living tradition of Christ’s Church. The world and its champions are not open to the Trinitarian communion which the Church is the sign. "But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me." William Fredrickson, OBLOSB, D.Min. --
For questions, comments or other communication, please contact: William Fredrickson Fredrickson46@msn.com

2025

Fifth Week of Easter

April 19 to April 2025

Monday
John 14.21-26
"Why, O Lord, are you not more revealed to the world?" That question constantly haunts us in our prayer. You show yourself to us in prayer, but we don't see you as readily in the world. Of course, there is an answer that theologians give with their theory of the "anonymous Christian." Christ is manifest in a hidden way in all the good consciences shown in loving behavior. Yes, but that's not what we experience in our contemplative prayer. Jesus is not anonymous. He is our life, our light, our love, the way, the truth. He is the very substance of our substance through participation in the divine life in grace. That is what we yearn for in our prayer that Jesus be known and loved explicitly by all individuals. Will not that be the final condition of the cosmos: All restored in Christ for the Father? Yes. Amen. Jesus gives no answer directly to the question in this Gospel. That is not ours to know. The Holy Spirit holds us in remembrance that is the divine presence and it penetrates every fiber of our being. If the divine Presence enveloping all is not experienced yet visibly among all peoples, this Presence is at the center of our prayer. What we receive is the invitation and the command. The invitation is to love and to abide. The command is to be faithful. It is more than a command. It is our life. To live consciously in Christ in the Father through the Spirit is the summit of our whole existence as it will be the All for eternity.

Tuesday
John 14.27-31
Peace, says St. Augustine, is the tranquility of order. Peace of soul is our internal harmony, the coming together of all disparate parts into a unity that enhances the whole. The whole is the person in his or her identity and uniqueness. This is Jesus' legacy: Peace I leave you. But then Jesus goes further. It is "My peace" that He gives you. It is not the general notion of peace alone. It is much deeper. It is beyond what the world can give and can understand. By the “world” Jesus here means the secular world as it considers itself to subsist in itself, and to be sufficient unto itself to meet all its needs. Therefore, the secular world cannot understand the peace of Jesus. The gift of Jesus' peace is his relationship with the Father. The Father is the all of Jesus. For that reason, Jesus calls his Father, greater, even though he is one with the Father in divinity. The Father is greater because it is from the Father that the Son proceeds. And Jesus in his humanity is directed to the Father fully and absolutely.. The Evil One is completely other than the Son but the Son in the manner of his death willingly submits to the force of the world controlled by Satan—“the ruler of this world.” Christ's peace triumphs in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our prayer is always in peace because it is in the simplicity of total surrender beyond the comings and goings of our thoughts. It is peace within the world because at the radical center of creation, Christ has conquered the world.

Wednesday
John 15.1-8
Prayer is the expression of conscious union with God as if a branch would suddenly be aware of its union with the vine. Prayer also facilitates the necessary pruning of the vine. There is a dual motion in God's embracing us in prayer. First, he allows us to penetrate into the very Center of God which is the Holy Trinity. Second, God penetrates into the deepest parts of our soul to our very personal identity. He enters there to prune us, to purge us, and to cleanse us of all that is false and destructive. In that way of praying we live and abide in Christ. The vine is deep in the ground to receive the nutrients of life. It is also turned to the sun in its leaves. The vine must search in both directions. We are an attended-to and cared-for vine. We are not a wild vine. We belong in the garden of a solicitous vine dresser. Prayer brings us into God and brings God into us, all under the pruning action of the Father.

Thursday
John 15.9-11
This very short, concise Gospel is often used at Nuptial Masses. The two words, “Love and Joy,” are the two themes of this selection. These two words very much occur on wedding cards and invitations. So let us remember nuptial love is patterned after the love of the Trinity for the Church. The Trinitarian love of the Father and the Son is given to the Church: Abide in my love. The Church is brought as a bride to God for mystical union based on love and the gift of mutual joy. The experience of love and joy is heightened in the Paschal Season. The Risen Jesus is at the center of the Church and at the same time makes the living members mystically abide in the Trinity. This is the joy that Jesus shares with us now in the Church through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The other key word is commandments. The pursuit of love and joy can easily disintegrate into sentimentality and sensuous, destructive self-love when the will gives up the struggle in fortitude to be faithful to the will of the Father expressed in the commandments of the Gospel. Prayer must be rooted in desire to be faithful to the path given by Christ through the Church. The infinite longitude of love and joy comes only from the reality of the narrow way of obedience. Seemingly narrow only in the moment of surrender, but infinite in the opening into the life of God. Jesus warns us that the path is broad and easy that leads to destruction.

Friday
John 15.12-17
The daily, practical, sacrificial love in service to others is a gift that comes from the Trinity. It is Jesus' love for us on the cross that becomes ours to be shared with others. We are friends because we have rested on the bosom of Christ and have drunk deeply from his heart. He has shared with us all that he lives with the Father. We are friends, not only servants. Love is a free gift. Jesus has chosen us in the free gift of grace. There is nothing we could have done to have caused this friendship. It is the divine sap of the vine running through our spiritual veins. It bears fruit in our practical love for others. It bears fruit in our witness to Jesus and the power of salvation which he brings to the world through our friendship with God.

Saturday
John 15.18-21
Our love-life with God in Christ must not be sentimental. It is not a part of the conventional wisdom of our dominant culture. This is especially true in being an orthodox Catholic. We are orthodox if we accept the Magisterium and allow its truth to germinate within us. Remember that Jesus said there is an absolute relationship between love and commandments. There is no love if there is no behavior that reflects the moral code of living given us in the New Testament which the Magisterium holds out to us as a light in the darkness. If we have this ecclesial attitude then we can expect the hatred of the world. The term “the world” includes under that Gospel category all those who are intentionally outside of the light of Christ and who have institutionalized their opposition to the Gospel as proclaimed in the Church. Many dissident Catholics become part of the siege because they can easily rally for what the world wants in opposition to the living tradition of Christ’s Church. The world and its champions are not open to the Trinitarian communion which the Church is the sign. "But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent me."
William Fredrickson, OBLOSB, D.Min.

2025

--