Short Temper

"Be ye angry and sin not" (Ps 4:5) - well, this morning, after Confession, I'd said my penance (five Pater's and Ave's), lit some votive candles, and was just settling down to pray, when two ladies coming from out the side chapel and across the sanctuary steps decided to have a fairly loud conversation. A cough or two elicited no change. When they came over, still talking, to the Marian icons and side altars of Our Lady and the Sacred Heart, I thought they were going to leave by the side door; but no, they kept on chatting.

At this point I lost my short temper. "Excuse me, ladies, I'm trying to pray," said I, still kneeling at the forward pew, voicing my irritation at their distracting converse. Then I snapped, and added still more tersely, "This is a church, not a gossip-chamber."

They scuttled off, but instantly I felt frustrated, angry, and wretched again: so much for going and sinning no more! (The fact that, in amongst their conversation, they'd mentioned some silly devotional fad had helped annoy me particularly: so I was judging them rashly.)

After managing to calm down (it seemed overscrupulous to go back to the confessional), and lamenting my lack of charity, I turned, chastened, back to praying over the words of the Mass of Our Lady on Saturday: Salve, sancta Parens... As it says in the Gospel of Mary's Mass, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God, and keep it" (St Luke xi, 28). I especially repeated the words of the Confiteor and so forth at the start of Mass.

I was praying over the words of the Mass, perhaps blindly and hypocritically, because Fr had mentioned in Confession that we should remember that we are reborn as sons of God, and not just fallen mortals born "of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of man" (St John i, 13), so I had resolved to recite the Last Gospel, the Prologue of St John (i, 1-14) and think on this truth:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

"[D]arkness did not comprehend it... His own received Him not." Oh dear...

I later spoke with my mate Justin via mobile phone, and he seemed to think that persons talking away loudly in church do need to be told to stop doing so; but I know I overstepped the mark. Mea culpa; ora pro me peccatore.

The Beloved Disciple St John, Apostle and Evangelist

Today is the feast of the beloved disciple, St John, Apostle and Evangelist.  As I heard at Mass at Carmel in the homily today, St John reminds us in his Gospel that the Christ-Child brings us the same gifts at every Christmas: grace and truth (cf. S. John i, 14).

I thoroughly recommend, if it is not said at the Mass one attends (i.e., Traditional Roman – or Armenian Rite!), and even if it is, that the glorious prologue of St John's Gospel, the "Last [but really the first] Gospel", In principio erat Verbum (S. John i, 1-14) be read and prayed very often.  St Augustine records a man who desired it be written up in every church in letters of gold; I agree.  If the New Testament be 'greater' than the Old, and the Gospels 'greater' than the Acts, Epistles and Apocalypse, and the Johannine 'greater' than the Synoptics, then it is the first chapter of St John, and within it these glorious words, that is 'greatest' of all.  And genuflect at those sacred words, proclaiming the greatest event in all history:  Et Verbum caro factum est.

The traditional collect for today is as follows; I pair it with the collect for his former feast on the 6th of May, St John-before-the-Latin-Gate, commemorating his miraculous deliverance from being thrown in a vat of boiling oil:

Ecclesiam tuam, Domine, benignus illustra: ut beati Joannis Apostoli tui et Evangelistæ illuminata doctrinis, ad dona perveniat sempiternis.  Per Christum Dominum nostrum.  R/.  Amen.

(Lord, in Thy goodness shine upon Thy Church: that enlightened by the doctrines of blessed John, Thine Apostle and Evangelist, she may attain unto everlasting gifts.  Thro' Christ our Lord.  R/.  Amen.)

Deus, qui conspicis quia nos undique mala nostra perturbant: præsta, quæsumus; ut beati Joannis Apostoli tui et Evangelistæ intercessio gloriosa nos protegat.  Per Christum Dominum nostrum.  R/.  Amen.

(O God, Who seest that on every side we are afflicted by our evils: deny us not, we entreat Thee, the safeguard of the glorious intercession of blessed John Thine Apostle and Evangelist.  Thro' Christ our Lord.  R/.  Amen.)

Tho' the Roman Breviary does not have proper Matins antiphons for this feast, the Dominican does, and I append them:

Aña j.  Joannes Apostolus, et Evangelista, virgo est electus a Domino, atque inter cæteros magis dilectus.  

Aña ij.  Supra pectus Domini Jesu recumbens, Evangelii fluenta de ipso sacro Dominici pectoris fonte potavit.  

Aña iij.  Quasi unus de Paradisi fluminibus Evangelista Joannes, verbi Dei gratiam in toto terrarum orbe diffudit.  

(These antiphons of the First Nocturn describe St John, the Beloved Disciple, reclining on Our Our Lord's breast, and drawing from His Sacred Heart the secret inspiration for the Fourth Gospel.)

Aña iv.  In ferventis olei dolium missus Joannes Apostolus, divina se protegente gratia, illæsus exivit.  

Aña v.  Propter insuperabilem evangelizandi constantiam exilio relegatus, divinæ visionis, et allocutionis meruit crebra consolatione revelari.  

Aña vj.  Occurrit beato Joanni, ab exilio revertenti, omnis populus virorum, ac mulierum, clamantium et dicentium: Benedictus, qui venit in nomine Domini.  

(These antiphons of the Second Nocturn – probably drawing on apocryphal sources –  describe how the attempt to boil the Apostle in oil was foiled, how he was exiled to Patmos, there received the vision of the Apocalypse, and upon returning to his see of Ephesus was feted by all.)

Aña vij.  Apparuit charo suo Joanni Dominus Jesus Christus cum discipulis suis, et ait illi: Veni, dilecte mi, ad me, quia tempus est, ut epuleris in convivio meo cum fratribus tuis.  

Aña viij.  Expandens manus suas ad Deum, dixit: Invitatus ad convivium tuum venio, gratias agens, quia me dignatus es, Domine Jesu Christe, ad tuas epulas invitare: sciens, quia ex toto corde meo desiderabam te.  

Aña ix.  Domine, suscipe me, ut cum fratribus meis sim, cum quibus veniens invitasti me: aperi mihi januam vitæ, et perduc me ad convivium epularum tuarum: tu enim es Christus filius Dei vivi, qui præcepto Patris mundum salvasti: tibi gratias referimus per infinita sæculorum sæcula.  

(These antiphons of the Third Nocturn – again, seemingly from some apocryphal source – tell of how Our Lord appeared to St John, calling him home to heaven, and how the aged Evangelist cried out with joy and gratitude that He Who had loved and chosen him from childhood years now at last drew him for ever to Himself.)