A reflection for Friday within the Twenty-Third Week after the Octave of Pentecost — Feria Sexta infra Hebdomadam XXIII post Octavam Pentecostes, IV classis (6 November)
For the third time this week, the priest goes to the altar with the Mass of last Sunday. All Saints took the Sunday itself, so the free weekdays carry its Epistle and Gospel instead. We have heard St. Paul’s letter about the body of our lowness, and the story of the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment, twice already. On Tuesday, under the shadow of All Souls, they spoke of graves and of rising. On Thursday, the day of the Blessed Sacrament, they spoke of His Body and the power that goes out from it.
Friday reads them again in a different light. Friday is the day of the Cross. Every Friday of the year the Church remembers the day her Lord died, and she asks her children to keep it with penance by giving up meat. Today is also the first Friday of November. Since Our Lord asked St. Margaret Mary to honour His Sacred Heart on the first Friday of each month, many of the faithful go to Mass and Communion today in reparation. On first Fridays the 1962 rubrics allow a votive Mass of the Sacred Heart in many churches. Where the ferial Mass is said instead, its texts are a fitting preparation for that devotion. St. Paul speaks this morning of men who are “enemies of the cross of Christ,” and he says so weeping. The Gospel tells of a woman healed of an issue of blood. On a Friday, it is hard to hear either one without thinking of Calvary.
The Roman Martyrology also commemorates today St. Leonard, a hermit near Limoges in the sixth century. Popular devotion made him the patron of prisoners, and in old pictures he holds a broken chain. We will meet those chains again in the Collect.
I. Inimicos crucis Christi: the Epistle
“Brethren, be ye followers of me, and observe them who walk so as you have our model. For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things. But our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory, according to the operation whereby also he is able to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, and most desired, my joy and my crown; so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beg of Euodia, and I beseech Syntyche, to be of one mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also, my sincere companion, help those women who have laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement and the rest of my fellow labourers, whose names are in the book of life.” (Phil. 3:17-21; 4:1-3)
Who are the enemies of the Cross? We might expect St. Paul to mean pagans who mock the Crucified, or persecutors who kill His disciples. He does not. He is speaking of men who are inside the Church. He has warned the Philippians about them “often.” They are not people who deny the Cross in words. They are people who refuse it in their lives.
St. John Chrysostom, preaching on this passage, draws out exactly this point (Homiliæ in Epistulam ad Philippenses 13). In substance, he says that these men were Christians in name, but they lived in luxury and ease, and nothing is more hostile to the Cross than that. The Cross is the life of the disciple: self-denial, endurance, the body brought under. A man who serves his appetites while bearing the name of Christ makes himself an enemy of the very thing that saved him. Chrysostom asks his hearers whether, if the Lord was crucified for them, they can bear to live softly.
Whose god is their belly. The phrase is blunt on purpose. Paul does not say that these men are fond of their food. He says they worship it. Their stomach has taken the place of God. St. Jerome, who knew the temptations of the table as well as any monk, warns repeatedly in his letters that gluttony is the mother of the other vices of the flesh, and that a full stomach makes a weak soul. The early Church answered the god of the belly with fasting. The Didache, one of the oldest Christian writings outside Scripture, already tells the faithful to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays (Didache 8.1). Friday was chosen because it was the day of the Passion.
That is why the Church still asks us to abstain from meat on Fridays. The law is small. It is meant to be small. It is a weekly sign that we are not among those “who mind earthly things,” and that our stomachs are not our gods. A Catholic who keeps the Friday abstinence is saying, once a week, with his body: I belong to the Cross.
Weeping. Notice how Paul says all this. Flens dico, “I tell you weeping.” He is not scolding from a distance. He writes from prison, and he weeps for men who are walking toward destruction. Chrysostom draws attention to these tears. The Apostle wept, he says in substance, not for himself or for his chains, but for those who were perishing. This is the spirit of the Sacred Heart. Our Lord did not show St. Margaret Mary a Heart full of anger at the coldness of men. He showed her a Heart wounded by it, and asked for consolation. Reparation begins when we learn to grieve, as Paul grieved and as Christ grieves, over sin, our own first and then the world’s.
Our conversation is in heaven. Against the men who mind earthly things, Paul sets the true Christian. Nostra autem conversatio in cælis est. The Greek word behind conversatio means citizenship, the city a man belongs to. We are citizens of heaven living for a time abroad. That is why we can fast without bitterness and suffer without despair. An exile does not try to make himself too comfortable in a foreign country. He lives there honestly, and he watches the road home, “from whence also we look for the Saviour.”
Euodia, Syntyche, and Clement. The Epistle ends with something that seems at first like a parish quarrel. Two women who had worked hard with Paul for the Gospel have fallen out, and he begs them “to be of one mind in the Lord.” Even good people who have laboured for Christ can be divided. Paul does not take sides. He sends them back to the one place where unity is possible: in Domino, in the Lord. Then he names a fellow worker, Clement. Origen and Eusebius identified this Clement with St. Clement of Rome, the third successor of St. Peter (Origen, Commentarii in Ioannem VI.36; Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica III.4.9 and III.15). Whether or not they are right, it is fitting that Clement’s own letter to the Corinthians is the Church’s first great plea, after the Apostles, for peace among quarrelling Christians.
II. Mulier, quæ sanguinis fluxum patiebatur: the Gospel
“At that time, as Jesus was speaking these things unto the multitudes, behold a certain ruler came up, and adored him, saying: Lord, my daughter is even now dead; but come, lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus rising up followed him, with his disciples. And behold a woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment. For she said within herself: If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, and saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout, he said: Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country.” (Matt. 9:18-26)
Twelve years of blood. The woman’s suffering was not only in her body. Under the Law of Moses, a woman with a flow of blood was unclean, and whatever she touched became unclean (Lev. 15:25-27). For twelve years she could not go into the Temple. For twelve years people had drawn back from her. St. Mark adds that she “had spent all that she had” on physicians, “and was nothing the better, but rather worse” (Mark 5:26). She had come to the end of every human remedy.
That is why she comes from behind. She does not dare to stand before Him. She does not ask aloud. She reaches, in secret, for the lowest edge of His clothing. St. John Chrysostom, preaching on this Gospel, praises the woman’s faith and also notes her shame (Homiliæ in Matthæum 31). In substance, he says that she hid herself because she thought herself unclean, and feared that she would be rebuked. But the Lord would not let her go away healed in body and still ashamed in soul. He turned, and called her out, and spoke to her as no one had spoken to her in twelve years: “Be of good heart, daughter.”
Blood for blood. On a Friday, the Church invites us to see this woman at the foot of the Cross. She lost her blood for twelve years, and no one could help her. On Calvary the Lord lost His Blood in a few hours, and by it He healed the world. “But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). The flow from the woman was a flow toward death. The flow from His side is a flow toward life.
St. Augustine noticed that St. John chose his verb with care. The Evangelist does not say that the soldier wounded the side, or struck it, but that he opened it, aperuit. In substance, Augustine says that a door of life was opened there, from which flowed the sacraments of the Church, without which no one enters into true life (In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus 120.2). St. John Chrysostom teaches the same in his instructions to the newly baptized (Catecheses baptismales III.16-19). The water and the blood, he says, are Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. As Eve was formed from the side of the sleeping Adam, so the Church was formed from the side of Christ sleeping on the Cross.
This is the open Heart that the first Friday honours. The devotion to the Sacred Heart is not a sweet novelty. It is the Fathers’ meditation on the pierced side, kept alive in the Church and given new fire through St. Margaret Mary. The woman of the Gospel reached for the hem of His garment. We are invited much closer. The soldier’s lance has opened a way into the Heart itself.
The crowd presses; faith touches. St. Peter was puzzled when the Lord asked who had touched Him. Everyone was touching Him; “the multitudes throng and press thee” (Luke 8:45). St. Ambrose answers Peter’s puzzle in his commentary on St. Luke (Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam VI.56-59). In substance, he says that Christ is touched by faith, not by the body. Many pressed against Him; only one touched Him, because only one believed. St. Augustine makes the same contrast in his sermons: the crowd presses, faith touches.
That is a hard word on a first Friday. Many will come to the altar today. Many will receive the Body of the Lord. The question is not whether we are near Him. It is whether we reach for Him. Paul’s enemies of the Cross were also near Christ. They were in the Church. They knew the name of Jesus. But they pressed on Him like the crowd, and they did not touch Him.
The ruler’s daughter. The Fathers often read the two miracles of this Gospel together, as a figure of the whole history of salvation. St. Jerome, in his commentary on St. Matthew, takes the ruler’s daughter to stand for the Synagogue, and the woman with the issue of blood for the Church of the Gentiles (Commentarii in Evangelium Matthæi I, on 9:18-26). St. Hilary of Poitiers reads it the same way (In Matthæum 9). The Lord set out to heal the daughter of Israel, and on the way the nations reached out and were healed first. But He did not forget the ruler’s house. He went in at last, and took the girl by the hand, and she rose. St. Paul teaches the same mystery in his letter to the Romans: blindness has fallen on part of Israel “until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved” (Rom. 11:25-26).
III. The Mass as a whole: the Heart that pours out and the Cross that draws home
St. Thomas built the Summa on the pattern of exitus and reditus: all things go out from God, and all things are called back to Him (Summa Theologiæ I, q. 2, prologue). On a Friday that pattern has a shape, and the shape is the Cross.
The exitus is the outpouring. Power went out from Christ when the woman touched His garment. On Calvary He held nothing back. His Blood went out from His hands and His feet. Blood and water went out from His opened side. He emptied Himself to the last drop, so that what flowed from Him might flow into us through the sacraments of His Church.
The reditus is the return, and the Cross is also its road. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself” (John 12:32). Today’s Epistle shows where that drawing ends. Christ “will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory, according to the operation whereby also he is able to subdue all things unto himself.” The same power that poured out on Good Friday will on the last day bring every faithful body home in glory.
But we cannot return by any road but the one He took. That is why the enemies of the Cross are lost. They want the glory without the Cross. They “mind earthly things,” and so their end is destruction. The friends of the Cross take up the small crosses of each day: the Friday fast, the hidden penance, the patience that endures twelve years of illness without losing faith. Those crosses do not save us by themselves. They join us to the one Cross that does. The woman reached for His garment from behind, and so do we. On the last day He will turn, and see us, and call us daughter, and son.
IV. The Collect and the Secret
Absolve, quæsumus, Domine, tuorum delicta populorum: ut a peccatorum nexibus, quæ pro nostra fragilitate contraximus, tua benignitate liberemur.
“Absolve, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the offences of Thy people: that by Thy bountiful goodness we may be set free from the bonds of the sins which we have contracted through our frailty.”
A peccatorum nexibus: from the bonds of sins. Sin is a chain we have forged for ourselves, link by link, through our frailty. On this day the Martyrology remembers St. Leonard, whom generations of Christians have pictured holding broken chains. The Collect asks for a greater freedom than any prisoner’s release. And it asks for it in the right way. We do not ask God to reward our strength. We confess our frailty and appeal to His benignitas, His kindness. On a first Friday, that kindness has a face. It is the Heart that was opened for us.
The Secret, said over the offerings, asks for the grace to finish what God has begun:
Pro nostræ servitutis augmento sacrificium tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus: ut, quod immeritis contulisti, propitius exsequaris.
“We offer unto Thee, O Lord, a sacrifice of praise, for the increase of our service: that what Thou hast bestowed on us, all unworthy, Thou wouldst mercifully bring to completion.”
Immeritis: on the undeserving. The woman of the Gospel deserved nothing; she reached out in secret and received everything. The Church places that same humility on the altar, beside the sacrifice of the Cross made present. What God began in us at Baptism, when the water from His side was poured over us, we ask Him to complete. The Introit of this Mass has already told us His intention: Ego cogito cogitationes pacis, et non afflictionis, “I think thoughts of peace, and not of affliction” (Jer. 29:11). Those are the thoughts of the Sacred Heart.
V. A word for practice
Examine. Am I, in any part of my life, an enemy of the Cross? Do I keep the Friday abstinence faithfully, and in a spirit of penance, or do I look for ways around it? Is there some appetite, for food or drink or comfort or entertainment, that has quietly become a god to me? When I come to Holy Communion, do I reach for Christ with faith, or do I only press against Him with the crowd? Is there a Euodia or a Syntyche in my life, someone who worked beside me for the Lord, from whom I am now divided?
Do. Keep today’s abstinence deliberately, and add one small mortification of your own choosing, offered in reparation to the Sacred Heart. If you can, make the first Friday Communion today, and go to Confession beforehand if you need it. Take a few minutes before a crucifix and look at the wound in His side. If there is someone from whom you are estranged, take one step toward peace: a prayer for them, a kind word, a message.
Pray. The Collect of the day, slowly. Then the Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart, or simply the ancient Friday prayer: Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi, quia per sanctam Crucem tuam redemisti mundum. “We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.”
Aspiration. Cor Iesu, lancea perforatum, miserere nobis. “Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance, have mercy on us.”
Devote. Make the Stations of the Cross today, or at least pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Ask St. Leonard to pray for all who are in prison, and for all who are bound by chains of sin they cannot break. Ask St. Clement, whose name is in the book of life, to obtain peace among Christians who have fallen out.
If you wish to go deeper: the Spiritual Practices path treats Friday penance and the ancient Wednesday and Friday fasts, the first Friday devotion, and the practice of reparation. The Theology and Doctrine path takes up the theology of the Sacred Heart, the birth of the Church from the side of Christ, and the sacraments as the continuation of the Passion. The Sacred Liturgy path explains the votive Mass of the Sacred Heart on first Fridays and the use of Sunday Masses on ferias. The Lives of the Saints path tells the stories of St. Leonard of Noblac and St. Clement of Rome. The Church History path follows the Fathers’ reading of the Synagogue and the Church in the two miracles of this Gospel.
Sources. Scripture is cited from the Douay-Rheims, with the Vulgate. The Fathers are given in paraphrase with their loci: St. John Chrysostom, Homiliæ in Epistulam ad Philippenses 13, Homiliæ in Matthæum 31, and Catecheses baptismales III.16-19; St. Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus 120.2, and his sermons on the woman with the issue of blood; St. Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam VI.56-59; St. Jerome, Commentarii in Evangelium Matthæi I (on 9:18-26), and his letters on fasting; St. Hilary of Poitiers, In Matthæum 9; Origen, Commentarii in Ioannem VI.36; Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica III.4.9 and III.15; Didache 8.1. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ I, q. 2, prologue. Calendar: the Roman Martyrology for 6 November.
Cor Iesu, lancea perforatum, miserere nobis.