Antiphon
Ps 130 (129): 3-4
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you is found forgiveness,
O God of Israel.
Collect
O God, who raised up Pope Saint Callistus the First
to serve the Church
and attend devoutly to Christ's faithful departed,
strengthen us, we pray, by his witness to the faith,
so that, rescued from the slavery of corruption,
we may merit an incorruptible inheritance.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Reading
EPH 1:11-14
Brothers and sisters:
In Christ we were also chosen,
destined in accord with the purpose of the One
who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,
so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,
we who first hoped in Christ.
In him you also, who have heard the word of truth,
the Gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him,
were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
which is the first installment of our inheritance
toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 33:1-2, 4-5, 12-13
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Exult, you just, in the LORD;
praise from the upright is fitting.
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten stringed lyre chant his praises.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
For upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
From heaven the LORD looks down;
he sees all mankind.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Alleluia
PS 33:22
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
May your kindness, LORD, be upon us;
who have put our hope in you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
LK 12:1-7
At that time:
So many people were crowding together
that they were trampling one another underfoot.
Jesus began to speak, first to his disciples,
“Beware of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees.
“There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness
will be heard in the light,
and what you have whispered behind closed doors
will be proclaimed on the housetops.
I tell you, my friends,
do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but after that can do no more.
I shall show you whom to fear.
Be afraid of the one who after killing
has the power to cast into Gehenna;
yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one.
Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins?
Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God.
Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.
Do not be afraid.
You are worth more than many sparrows.”
October 14
Saint Callistus I (d. 222)
The only story of his life we have is from someone who hated him and what he stood for, an author identified as Saint Hippolytus, a rival candidate for the chair of Peter. What had made Hippolytus so angry? Hippolytus was very strict and rigid in his adherence to rules and regulations. The early Church had been very rough on those who committed sins of adultery, murder, and fornication. Hippolytus was enraged by the mercy that Callistus showed to these repentant sinners, allowing them back into communion of the Church after they had performed public penance. Callistus' mercy was also matched by his desire for equality among Church members, manifested by his acceptance of marriages between free people and slaves. Hippolytus saw all of this as a degradation of the Church, a submission to lust and licentiousness that reflected not mercy and holiness in Callistus but perversion and fraud.
Trying to weed out the venom to find the facts of Callistus' life in Hippolytus' account, we learn that Callistus himself was a slave (something that probably did not endear him to class-conscious Hippolytus). His master, Carporphorus made him manager of a bank in the Publica Piscina sector of Rome where Callistus took in the money of other Christians. The bank failed -- according to Hippolytus because Callistus spent the money on his own pleasure-seeking. It seems unlikely that Carporphorus would trust his good name and his fellow Christians' savings to someone that unreliable.
Whatever the reason, Callistus fled the city by ship in order to escape punishment. When his master caught up with him, Callistus jumped into the sea (according to Hippolytus, in order to commit suicide). After Callistus was rescued he was brought back to Rome, put on trial, and sentenced to a cruel punishment -- forced labor on the treadmill. Carporphorus took pity on his former slave and manager and Callistus won his release by convincing him he could get some of the money back from investors. (This seems to indicate, in spite of Hippolytus' statements, that the money was not squandered but lent or invested unwisely.) Callistus' methods had not improved with desperation and when he disrupted a synagogue by shouting for money, he was arrested and sentenced again.
This time he was sent to the mines. Other Christians who had been sentenced there because of their religion were released by negotiations between the emperor and the Pope (with the help of the emperor's mistress who was friendly toward Christians). Callistus accidentally wound up on the same list with the persecuted brothers and sisters. (Hippolytus reports that this was through extortion and connniving on Callistus' part.) Apparently, everyone, including the Pope, realized Callistus did not deserve his new freedom but unwilling to carry the case further the Pope gave Callistus an income and situation -- away from Rome. (Once again, this is a point for suspecting Hippolytus' account. If Callistus was so despicable and untrustworthy why provide him with an income and a situation? Leaving him free out of pity is one thing, but giving money to a convicted criminal and slave is another.
There must have been more to the story.)
About nine or ten years later, the new pope Zephyrinus recalled Callistus to Rome. Zephyrinus was good-hearted and well-meaning but had no understanding of theology. This was disastrous in a time when heretical beliefs were springing up everywhere. One minute Zephyrinus would endorse a belief he thought orthodox and the next he would embrace the opposite statement. Callistus soon made his value known, guiding Zephyrinus through theology to what he saw as orthodoxy. (Needless to say it was not what Hippolytus felt was orthodox enough.) To a certain extent, according to Hippolytus,
Callistus was the power behind the Church before he even assumed the bishopric of Rome.
When Zephyrinus died in 219, Callistus was proclaimed pope over the protests of his rival candidate Hippolytus. He seemed to have as strong a hatred of heresy as Hippolytus, however,
because he banished one of the heretics named Sabellius.
Callistus came to power during a crucial time of the Church. Was it going to hang on to the rigid rules of previous years and limit itself to those who were already saints or was it going to embrace sinners as Christ commanded? Was its mission only to a few holy ones or to the whole world, to the healthy or to the sick? We can understand Hippolytus' fear -- that hypocritical penitents would use the Church and weaken it in the time when they faced persecution. But Callistus chose to trust God's mercy and love and opened the doors. By choosing Christ's mission, he chose to spread the Gospel to all.
Pope Callistus is listed as a martyr but we have no record of how he was martyred or by whom. There were no official persecutions at the time, but he may well have been killed in riots against Christians.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will proclaim Your Praise!
Invitatory Psalm
Psalm 99 (100)
Cry out with joy to God, all the earth:
serve the Lord with gladness.
Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth,
and serve him with joy.
Exult as you enter his presence.
Cry out with joy to God, all the earth:
serve the Lord with gladness.
Know that the Lord is God.
He made us and we are his
– his people, the sheep of his flock.
Cry out with joy to God, all the earth:
serve the Lord with gladness.
Cry out his praises as you enter his gates,
fill his courtyards with songs.
Proclaim him and bless his name;
for the Lord is our delight.
His mercy lasts forever,
his faithfulness through all the ages.
Cry out with joy to God, all the earth:
serve the Lord with gladness.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
Cry out with joy to God, all the earth:
serve the Lord with gladness.
Hymn
O God, creation’s secret force,
yourself unmoved, all motion’s source,
who from the morn till evening ray
through all its changes guide the day:
Grant us, when this short life is past,
the glorious evening that shall last;
that, by a holy death attained,
eternal glory may be gained.
To God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Spirit, Three in One,
may every tongue and nation raise
an endless song of thankful praise!
St Ambrose of Milan
Psalm 102 (103)
Praise of the compassionate Lord
My soul, give thanks to the Lord,
and never forget all his blessings.
My soul, bless the Lord!
All that is in me, bless his holy name.
My soul, bless the Lord!
Never forget all he has done for you.
The Lord, who forgives your wrongdoing,
who heals all your weaknesses.
The Lord, who redeems your life from destruction,
who crowns you with kindness and compassion.
The Lord, who fills your age with good things,
who renews your youth like an eagle’s.
The Lord, who gives fair judgements,
who gives judgement in favor of the oppressed.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
My soul, give thanks to the Lord,
and never forget all his blessings.
Psalm 102 (103)
As a father has compassion on his sons,
the Lord has pity on those who fear him.
The Lord is compassion and kindness,
full of patience, full of mercy.
He will not fight against you for ever:
he will not always be angry.
He does not treat us as our sins deserve;
he does not pay us back for our wrongdoing.
As high as the sky above the earth,
so great is his kindness to those who fear him.
As far as east is from west,
so far he has put our wrongdoing from us.
As a father cares for his children,
so the Lord cares for those who fear him.
For he knows how we are made,
he remembers we are nothing but dust.
Man – his life is like grass,
he blossoms and withers like flowers of the field.
The wind blows and carries him away:
no trace of him remains.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
As a father has compassion on his sons,
the Lord has pity on those who fear him.
Psalm 102 (103)
Give thanks to the Lord, all his works.
The Lord has been kind from the beginning;
to those who fear him his kindness lasts for ever.
His justice is for their children’s children,
for those who keep his covenant,
for those who remember his commandments
and try to perform them.
The Lord’s throne is high in the heavens
and his rule shall extend over all.
Bless the Lord, all his angels,
strong in your strength, doers of his command,
bless him as you hear his words.
Bless the Lord, all his powers,
his servants who do his will.
Bless the Lord, all he has created,
in every place that he rules.
My soul, bless the Lord!
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
Give thanks to the Lord, all his works.
Teach me the way of your precepts, O Lord,
– and I will reflect on the wonders you have wrought.
First Reading
Zechariah 3:1-4:14
He showed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing on his right to accuse him. The angel of the Lord said to Satan, ‘May the Lord rebuke you, Satan, may the Lord rebuke you, he who has made Jerusalem his very own. Is not this man a brand snatched from the fire?’ Now Joshua was dressed in dirty clothes as he stood before the angel of the Lord. The angel said these words to those who stood before him, ‘Take off his dirty clothes and clothe him in splendid robes of state, and put a clean turban on his head.’ They clothed him in splendid robes of state and put a clean turban on his head. The angel of the Lord was standing there and said to him, ‘Look, I have taken away your iniquity from you.’ The angel of the Lord then proclaimed to Joshua: ‘The Lord of Hosts says this, “If you walk in my ways and keep my ordinances, you shall govern my house, you shall watch over my courts, and I will give you free access among those who stand here. For this is the stone which I am placing before Joshua; on this single stone there are seven eyes;
and I myself intend to cut the inscription on it –
it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks.
‘“Now listen, High Priest Joshua, you and the friends who sit before you – for you are men of good omen. I now mean to raise my servant Branch, and I intend to put aside the iniquity of this land in a single day. On that day – it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks –
you will entertain each other under your vine and fig tree.”’
The angel who was talking to me came back and roused me as a man is roused from his sleep. And he asked me, ‘What can you see?’ I answered, ‘As I look, this is what I see: there is a lamp-stand entirely of gold with a bowl at the top of it; seven lamps are on the lamp-stand, and seven lips for the lamps on it. By it are two olive trees, one to the right of it and one to the left.’ Speaking again, I said to the angel who was talking to me, ‘What do those things mean, my lord?’ The angel who was talking to me replied, ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ I said, ‘No, my lord.’ He then gave me this answer, ‘These seven are the eyes of the Lord; they cover the whole world.’ In reply to this I asked him, ‘What is the meaning of these two olive trees, to the right and to the left of the lamp-stand?’ (Speaking again, I asked him, ‘What is the meaning of the two olive branches pouring the oil through the two golden pipes?’) He replied, ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ I said, ‘No, my lord.’ He said,
‘These are the two anointed ones who stand before the Lord of the whole world.
‘This is the word of the Lord with regard to Zerubbabel, “Not by might and not by power,
but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.
“What are you, you great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, be a plain!
He will pull out the keystone to shouts of:
Blessings on it, blessings on it!”’
The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows,
‘The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this Temple; his hands will finish it.
(And you will learn that the Lord of Hosts has sent me to you.)
A day for little things, no doubt, but who would dare despise it?
People will rejoice when they see the chosen stone in the hands of Zerubbabel.’
Responsory
These are the two olive trees and the two lamps that stand in the presence of the Lord of the earth.
The Lord will appoint as prophets his two witnesses that stand in the presence of the Lord of the earth.
Second Reading
From the discourses addressed to Thalassius
by Saint Maximus the Confessor
The light that enlightens every man
The lamp that is set on the lamp-stand is the true light from the Father, the light that enlightens every man coming into the world, namely our Lord Jesus Christ. By becoming one of us and assuming our human nature he became and was called the lamp. This means that he is by nature the wisdom and word of God, the Father, which is faithfully and loyally preached in God’s Church and which is raised up as a shining and resplendent light among the nations by a life of virtue led in accordance with the commandments, giving light to all who are in the house (by that I mean in this world). So the divine Word says somewhere: Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel,
but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
Clearly he is calling himself a lamp, for while he was God by nature he became a man according to God’s plan of salvation.
I think that in his wisdom the great David understood this when he called the Lord a lamp: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. For that is the sort of Saviour my Lord and God is, delivering men from the darkness of ignorance and sin,
which is also why scripture calls him a lamp.
Like a lamp he has dispelled the gloom of ignorance and the darkness of sin, and in this way he alone has become the path to salvation for all men. By virtue and knowledge he brings to the Father all those who are resolved to follow him, who is the way of righteousness, by keeping the divine commandments. The Holy Church he calls the lamp-stand, for through its preaching the word of God shines out on it and enlightens all that live in this world, as in a house, with the brightness of truth,
filling the minds of all men with the knowledge of God.
The word will not suffer being kept under a bushel: it needs to be set on that great and beautiful lamp-stand that is the Church. For if the word is restricted by the letter of the law, like a light hidden under a bushel, it deprives all men of eternal light. It offers no spiritual vision to men striving to free themselves from the senses. For they recognise that these are misleading, capable only of error and able to grasp only what is of their own nature, that is to say subject to decay. But once the word is placed on the lamp-stand, that is the Church, where God receives true worship in spirit, then it will give light to all men.
If the letter is not understood according to the spirit, then it can only be grasped with the senses,
which means that what it has to say is restricted and the force of what is written is not allowed to sink into the mind.
Therefore, let us not put the lamp (that is the enlightening word of knowledge) which we have lit by spiritual contemplation and action under a bushel. Let us not be guilty of restricting the incomprehensible force of wisdom by the letter.
Let us put it on the lamp-stand (by that I mean the Church),
where on the heights of true contemplation it may hold out the light of divine teaching to all men.
Responsory
Walk while you have the light,
or darkness will overtake you.
While you still have the light,
trust to the light and you will become sons of light.
I have come into this world to give sight to the blind.
While you still have the light,
trust to the light and you will become sons of light.
Let us pray.
Lord God,
open our hearts to your grace.
Let it go before us and be with us,
that we may always be intent upon doing your will.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Let us praise the Lord.
– Thanks be to God.
