The Lord led this holy man along a sure path. – He showed him the kingdom of God. READINGS First reading From the beginning of the book of the prophet Habakkuk 1:1–2:4a A prayer in time of desolation The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet received in vision. How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord. This is why the law is benumbed, and judgment is never rendered: Because the wicked circumvent the just; this is why judgment comes forth perverted. Look over the nations and see, and be utterly amazed! For a work is being done in your days that you would not have believed, were it told. For see, I am raising up Chaldea, that bitter and unruly people, That marches the breadth of the land to take dwellings not his own. Terrible and dreadful is he, from himself derive his law and his majesty. Swifter than leopards are his horses, and keener than wolves at evening. His horses prance, his horsemen come from afar: They fly like the eagle hastening to devour; each comes for the rapine, Their combined onset is that of a stormwind that heaps up captives like sand. He scoffs at kings, and princes are his laughingstock; He laughs at any fortress, heaps up a ramp, and conquers it. Then he veers like the wind and is gone– this culprit who makes his own strength his god! Are you not from eternity, O Lord, my holy God, immortal? O Lord you have marked him for judgment, O Rock, you have readied him for punishment! Too pure are your eyes to look upon evil, and the sight of misery you cannot endure. Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence while the wicked man devours one more just than himself? You have made man like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler. He brings them all up with his hook, he hauls them away with his net, He gathers them in his seine; and so he rejoices and exults. Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his seine; For thanks to them his portion is generous, and his repast sumptuous. Shall he, then, keep on brandishing his sword to slay peoples without mercy? I will stand at my guard post, and station myself upon the rampart, And keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what answer he will give to my complaint. Then the Lord answered me and said: Write down the vision Clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash man has no integrity; but the just man, because of his faith, shall live. RESPONSORY Hebrews 10:37-38, 39 A little while longer, a very little while and the promised one will come. He will not delay. – My just one will live by faith. We are not people who shrink back and are lost; we live by faith that we might be saved. – My just one will live by faith. Second reading From a letter by Saint Peter Claver, priest To preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim pardon to captives Yesterday, May 30, 1627, on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, numerous blacks, brought from the rivers of Africa, disembarked from a large ship. Carrying two baskets of oranges, lemons, sweet biscuits, and I know not what else, we hurried toward them. When we approached their quarters, we thought we were entering another Guinea. We had to force our way through the crowd until we reached the sick. Large numbers of the sick were lying on the wet ground or rather in puddles of mud. To prevent excessive dampness, someone had thought of building up a mound with a mixture of tiles and broken pieces of bricks. This, then, was their couch, a very uncomfortable one not only for that reason, but especially because they were naked, without any clothing to protect them. We laid aside our cloaks, therefore, and brought from a warehouse whatever was handy to build a platform. In that way we covered a space to which we at last transferred the sick, by forcing a passage through bands of slaves. Then we divided the sick into two groups: one group my companion approached with an interpreter, while I addressed the other group. There were two blacks, nearer death than life, already cold, whose pulse could scarcely be detected. With the help of a tile we pulled some live coals together and placed them in the middle near the dying men. Into this fire we tossed aromatics. Of these we had two wallets full, and we used them all up on this occasion. Then, using our own cloaks, for they had nothing of this sort, and to ask the owners for others would have been a waste of words, we provided for them a smoke treatment, by which they seemed to recover their warmth and the breath of life. The joy in their eyes as they looked at us was something to see. This was how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions. And in fact, convinced as they were that they had been brought here to be eaten, any other language would have proved utterly useless. Then we sat, or rather knelt, beside them and bathed their faces and bodies with wine. We made every effort to encourage them with friendly gestures and displayed in their presence the emotions which somehow naturally tend to hearten the sick. After this we began an elementary instruction about baptism, that is, the wonderful effects of the sacrament on body and soul. When by their answers to our questions they showed they had sufficiently understood this, we went on to a more extensive instruction, namely, about the one God, who rewards and punishes each one according to his merit, and the rest. We asked them to make an act of contrition and to manifest their detestation of their sins. Finally, when they appeared sufficiently prepared, we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Passion. Showing them Christ fastened to the cross, as he is depicted on the baptismal font on which streams of blood flow down from his wounds, we led them in reciting an act of contrition in their own language. RESPONSORY Matthew 25:35, 40 I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was homeless and you took me in. – Now I tell you this: When you did these things for the most neglected of my brothers, you did them for me. This is what I command: Love one another as I have loved you. – Now I tell you this: When you did these things for the most neglected of my brothers, you did them for me.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 23:02:46 +0000
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