“... while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2.)
Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:
“A fire that lies in wood hidden below the surface is often unobserved by the senses of those who see or even touch it but is manifest when it blazes up. So too, at his death (which he brought about at his will, who separated his soul from his body; who said to his own Father, “Into your hands I commit my spirit”;23 who, as he says, “had power to lay it down and had power to take it again”24) he—who, because he is the lord of glory, despised that which is shame among men—having concealed, as it were, the flame of his life in his bodily nature, by the dispensation of his death, kindled and inflamed it once more by the power of his own Godhead, fostering into life that which had been brought to death. Having infused with the infinity of his divine power that humble firstfruits of our nature, he made it also to be that which he himself was—making the servile form to be Lord, and the human born of Mary to be Christ, and him who was crucified through weakness to be life and power, and making all that is piously conceived to be in God the Word to be also in that which the Word assumed. Thus these attributes no longer seem to be in either nature by way of division, but the perishable nature, being, by its commixture with the divine, made anew in conformity with the nature that overwhelms it, participates in the power of the Godhead, as if one were to say that mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea, by reason that the natural quality of this liquid does not continue in the infinity of that which overwhelms it. This is our doctrine.” (Against Eunomius, 5.)
“How is it to be taken here? Is it by being himself a believer that Jesus was "the founder of the faith"? Certain exegetes choose that interpretation; others think it impossible. It must be noted that in the New Testament the relation between Christ and God is never expressed by the verb to believe,and a text like Matt 11:27 excludes any possibility that Jesus is a simple believer; his relation with God is unique: "No one knows the Son fully (verb epiginoskein) except the Father and no one fully knows [same verb] the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." The expression in Heb 12:2 is along the same lines because it gives Jesus an active role as regards faith: he founded it and brought it to perfection. He was therefore not a simple believer. Jesus had a direct, immediate knowledge of his filial relation with God; this can be seen from the first words he utters in Luke 2:49. That was not knowledge by faith, based on outward indications. But on other levels of his awareness, he was, as the Gospels show, in a situation similar to that of simple believers. The accounts of his agony, in particular, show that he could "feel fear and anguish" (Mark 14:33) and that he did not know whether it was possible or not that the chalice should pass him by. But in that extreme situation, his filial awareness continued to affirm itself: "He said: Abba (Father), for you everything is possible; remove this chalice from me; however, not what I will, but what you will" (Mark 14:36). The author of the Letter to the Hebrews showed Jesus in this extreme situation when saying that, "in the days of his flesh," he "offered pleas and supplications to the One who could save him from death" (5:7).” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye. The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 196-197.)
Collect
Grant us, Lord our God,
that we may honor You with all our mind,
and love everyone in truth of heart.
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.
that we may honor You with all our mind,
and love everyone in truth of heart.
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
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
