CAPG's Blog 

"1 . One of the most difficult things in the world is to submit to anything that lowers us in the opinion of men and tends to give them a false impression respecting us. Our self-love revolts against the wrongful suspicion, and nature is eager to prove its injustice. Our Lord in the circumcision submitted to a rite which seemed to imply that He was born in sin, in order to teach us, at the very opening of His life, a willingness to be misunderstood and judged guilty of faults we have never committed, and to be credited with natural disadvantages which we do
not really possess.

2. We cannot all aim as high as this, or at least we have not yet reached this love of being wrongly judged and despised without cause. But at least we can learn to recognize how utterly opposed to the spirit of Christ is any attempt to make ourselves out better than we are, and to try and lead others to attribute to us virtues or advantages that are not ours, whether it be generosity, or piety, or learning, or riches, or high birth, or wide influence, or a distinguished position in the world.

3. If we want to test our humility, we cannot have a safer touchstone than this willingness to be underrated or disesteemed without any fault of our own. Happy those who can rejoice to suffer shame without giving cause for it ! Am I one of these ? "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1. It seems strange that the spotless Lamb of God should have been subjected to a rite which was the occasion on which Jewish boys were freed from original sin. Was it not derogatory to Jesus, and calculated to produce the false impression that He was not the Son of God, born of a virgin-mother, but a sinful son of Adam, like those around ? Sometimes it is not only lawful, but a duty, to do what is calculated to mislead others, when God enjoins it or some higher motive exists for it.

2. What was this higher motive in the case of the circumcision of Jesus? It was that He might become like us in all things, sin only excepted; that He might be made sin for us, i.e., might bear all the consequences of sin, and the suffering that is the result of sin. O merciful Savior! May my heart be ever full of gratitude to Thee for this Thy divine condescension !

3. Our Lord was circumcised also because He came to fulfill all the Jewish law, with all its rites and ceremonies. He exalted it by His obedience and exact accomplishment of all its details. So I ought to love and obey every enactment of the Church, every ceremony and every detail of her ritual and discipline."

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1. At the circumcision, Jewish children received their name as other children do at their baptism. Mary's little Son received the name of Jesus or Deliverer, because He was to deliver men from the slavery of sin. This was His appointed office by the divine command: to put an end to the slavery in which men were held by the devil. He was sent to deliver me from the bondage under which I have long labored, the bondage to the opinion of men, the bondage to ill-temper, the bondage to passion, the bondage to selfishness, the bondage to self-will, the bondage to riches or comforts. O Jesus, Deliverer of those in bondage, by Thy sacred circumcision deliver me !

2. Jesus is also our Deliverer from the terrible consequences of sin. Our sins were remitted by the shedding of His Precious Blood. Without the shedding of blood, says St. Paul, there is no remission. What reason I have to dread the consequences due to my sins! Yet Jesus can and will deliver me from them, if I love Him as I ought.

3. Jesus also is the Deliverer of all creation from the curse which came upon the whole earth at the Fall. He has sanctified it by the drops of His Precious Blood that fell upon it. Hence-forward it became a new earth, and one day He will cleanse it from all its impurities, and renew it to the heavenly beauty, and make it worthy to be the home of His elect. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"I. The week succeeding the birth of her Son had been to Mary a week of exquisite joy, one long ecstasy of heavenly delight, with no sorrow to mar the brightness of the sunshine of His presence. But on the octave of His Nativity all was changed. She began to realize the fact that Jesus had come to suffer — that He Who was infinitely dearer to her than the whole world was to be the Man of Sorrows — and Mary's joy was changed to bitter sorrow. Thus it is for all those who love God. The times when earth seems unable to contain the greatness of their joy are sure to be followed by sorrow and by pain.

2. It seemed but a trifle which thus changed the complexion of Mary's life. The pain that Jesus had to suffer had but a passing smart. Why should she thus grieve over it? It was because it betokened the indignities that He would have to suffer, the character of a victim for sin that He had taken upon Himself. Often a mere trifle destroys the brightness of our life. God uses matters seemingly trivial to teach us our weakness.

3. Yet Mary would not have had it otherwise. She knew it was the will of God, and that was enough for her. Would that I could learn this lesson more perfectly! Then nothing would destroy my peace, as nothing destroyed Mary's. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1. On the first day of the year we commemorate the first shedding of the Precious Blood for us. Christmas week, as it draws to a close, introduces us to the new-born King in the weakness of the nature that He shared with sinful man. We now learn that He came, not to manifest His power and majesty, but to be made like unto us in all things as far as it was possible for One Who was the Eternal Son of God. We begin to appreciate that He is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.

2. To-day He also proclaims that He is come to suffer for us. We listen to His first cry of pain, and see the strange spectacle of the first commencement of that Life of which the agony upon the cross was the final consummation. How shall we ever thank Him as we ought ? How great a joy we should consider it if we have the privilege of suffering some little pain for Him in return!

3. He also declares to us to-day that He is come to suffer with us, to take part in all the miseries of humanity, to learn by His own experience all that we have to endure in this valley of tears. This it is which should console us in all our troubles. Christ not only knows them all, but has in His mercy felt them all Himself in His sacred Humanity. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891