Tuesday in the Octave of Easter



“Therefore let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“We, learning this from him, say that the whole context of the passage tends one way—the cross itself, the human name, the indicative turn of the phrase. For the word of the Scripture says that in regard to one person two things were wrought—by the Jews, the passion, and by God, honor. It is not as though one person had suffered and another had been honored by exaltation. He further explains this yet more clearly by his words in what follows, “being exalted by the right hand of God.” Who then was “exalted”? He that was lowly, or he that was the highest? and what else is the lowly but the humanity? what else is the highest but the divinity? Surely, God needs not to be exalted, seeing that he is the highest. It follows, then, that the apostle’s meaning is that the humanity was exalted: and its exaltation was effected by its becoming Lord and Christ. And this took place after the passion. It is not therefore the pretemporal existence of the Lord that the apostle indicates by the word made but that change of the lowly to the lofty that was effected “by the right hand of God.” (Against Eunomius, 5.)




Collect
O God,
Who have bestowed on us paschal remedies,
endow Your people with heavenly gifts,
so that, possessed of perfect freedom,
they may rejoice in heaven
over what gladdens them now on earth.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.




Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen