9781644135945

The Light of the World
our sickness and unworthiness. “Look down, O Lord, to help me; let them be confounded and
ashamed that seek after my soul to take it away; look down, O Lord, to help me” (Offertory).
In the Holy Sacrifice Christ shares His life with us; He approaches the Father and intercedes
and prays for us. In Holy Communion He becomes the food of our souls. There we shall obtain
the strength to live a Christian life as described in the Epistle. The soul now prays with firm
resolution and hope. “O Lord, I will be mindful of Thy justice alone”; that is, I will think only
of Thy justice as I walk before Thee. “O Lord, Thou hast taught me from my youth”; Thou hast
strengthened me through this Eucharistic food, and Thou hast guided me since my early youth.
“And unto old age and gray hairs, O God, forsake me not” (Communion).
Meditation
“The Gentiles shall fear Thy name, O Lord, and all the kings of the earth Thy glory. For the Lord
hath built up Sion and He shall be seen in His majesty” (Gradual). The liturgy now turns its
gaze away from the turmoil of this transitory world to the return of the Lord on the day when
He will come again “with great power and majesty” (Lk 21:27). At the resurrection of the dead,
Sion (the Church) will arise to the new and perfect life of the blessed in heaven.
“Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried to Thee all the day; for Thou, O Lord, art
sweet and mild and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon Thee. Bow down Thy ear to me,
O Lord, and hear me; for I am needy and poor” (Introit). The fall has come and the Lord
comes, too, to gather His crops. During the course of the ecclesiastical year He has “done
wonderful things” for His Church (Alleluia verse) at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Day
by day He gave it new instructions and new graces; continually He worked in it that it might
be fortified in the faith through His spirit, that it might grow in charity and be filled with
the plenitude of divine life. What fruit it should have produced! But from so many of her
children the Church does not receive the rich harvest she expected. Her pains have been
wasted on so many of her children, even in the case of those who are especially consecrated
to God. They have not grown spiritually strong and robust; they have no sense of the infinite
riches of the knowledge of Christ and of life in Christ. They have no appreciation of the
infinite riches of God which could be theirs. The Church views with deep sorrow the many
who produced practically no fruit.
“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Gospel). The humble shall be filled with “all
the fullness of God” (Epistle). If our growth in grace has not flourished, it is because we laid no
foundation in humility. This fact the liturgy wishes to teach us through today’s Gospel. Jesus
is invited to the house of a respectable Pharisee, where He meets a man who is suffering from
dropsy. Jesus touches him and heals him, and then turns to the Pharisees who are at table with
Him. He has noticed how “they chose the first seats at the table.” “When thou art invited to a
wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honorable than thou be invited
by him. . . . Sit down in the lowest place, that when he who inviteth thee cometh, he may say to
thee: Friend, go up higher. Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee.”
This was the sin of the Pharisees: they wished to be honored and highly esteemed. This is also
our sickness, our dropsy: we are proud, we esteem ourselves better than others. As long as we
maintain this attitude, the life of faith and charity cannot strike deep roots in our soul, the Lord
cannot impart His life to us in its fullness. We are filled only with ourselves, “For God resisteth
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