Words of the Word

Monday after the Seventh Sunday of Easter

“When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 19:5.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Reading proclaimed at Mass today.:

“Of the existence of the Holy Spirit, we are taught in many passages of Scripture. For instance, David says in the fiftieth psalm, “And take not your Holy Spirit from me,” and in Daniel it is said, “The Holy Spirit, who is in you.” But in the New Testament we have proofs in abundance, as when the Holy Spirit is related to have descended upon Christ, and when the Lord breathed on his apostles after the resurrection and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and the angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you,” and Paul teaches us that “no one can say that Jesus is the Lord except in the Holy Spirit,” and in the Acts of the Apostles “through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given” in baptism. From all of which we learn that the person of the Holy Spirit is of so great authority and dignity that saving baptism is not complete except when performed with the authority of the whole most excellent Trinity, that is, by naming the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” (On First Principles, 1.)

Collect

May the power of the Holy Spirit
come to us, we pray, O Lord,
that we may keep Your will faithfully in mind
and express it in a devout way of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

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

The living water of the Holy Spirit

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his On the Holy Spirit

Monday after the Seventh Sunday of Easter

The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of living water, welling up into eternal life. This is a new kind of water, a living, leaping water, welling up for those who are worthy. But why did Christ call the grace of the Spirit water? Because all things are dependent on water; plants and animals have their origin in water. Water comes down from heaven as rain, and although it is always the same in itself, it produces many different effects, one in the palm tree, another in the vine, and so on throughout the whole of creation. It does not come down, now as one thing, now as another, but while remaining essentially the same, it adapts itself to the needs of every creature that receives it.

In the same way the Holy Spirit, whose nature is always the same, simple and indivisible, apportions grace to each man as he wills. Like a dry tree which puts forth shoots when watered, the soul bears the fruit of holiness when repentance has made it worthy of receiving the Holy Spirit. Although the Spirit never changes, the effects of this action, by the will of God and in the name of Christ, are both many and marvelous.

The Spirit makes one man a teacher of divine truth, inspires another to prophesy, gives another the power of casting out devils, enables another to interpret holy Scripture. The Spirit strengthens one man’s self-control, shows another how to help the poor, teaches another to fast and lead a life of asceticism, makes another oblivious to the needs of the body, trains another for martyrdom. His action is different in different people, but the Spirit himself is always the same. In each person, Scripture says, the Spirit reveals his presence in a particular way for the common good.

The Spirit comes gently and makes himself known by his fragrance. He is not felt as a burden, for he is light, very light. Rays of light and knowledge stream before him as he approaches. The Spirit comes with the tenderness of a true friend and protector to save, to heal, to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, to console. The Spirit comes to enlighten the mind first of the one who receives him, and then, through him, the minds of others as well.

As light strikes the eyes of a man who comes out of darkness into the sunshine and enables him to see clearly things he could not discern before, so light floods the soul of the man counted worthy of receiving the Holy Spirit and enables him to see things beyond the range of human vision, things hitherto undreamed of.

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

Seventh Sunday of Easter

“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” (John 17:6)

Saint Cyril of Alexandria comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“When the Savior declares that he has made known the name of God the Father, it is the same as saying that he has shown the whole world his glory. How did he do this? By making himself known through his wonderful works. The Father is glorified in the Son as in an image and type of his own form, for the beauty of the archetype is seen in its image. The only Son then has made himself known, and he is in his essence wisdom and life, the artificer and creator of the universe. He is immortal and incorruptible, pure, blameless, merciful, holy, good. His Father is known to be like him, since he could not be different in nature from his offspring. The Father’s glory is seen, as in an image and type of his own form, in the glory of the Son.

The Son made known the name of God the Father to teach us and make us fully comprehend not that he is the only God — for inspired Scripture had proclaimed that even before the coming of the Son — but that besides being truly God he is also rightly called “Father.” This is so because in himself and proceeding from himself he has a Son possessed of the same eternal nature as his own: it was not in time that he became the Father of the Creator of the ages!

To call God “Father” is more exact than to call him “God.” The word God signifies his dignity, but the word Father points to the distinctive attribute of his person. If we say “God,” we declare him to be Lord of the universe. If we call him “Father,” we show the way in which he is distinct as a person, for we make known the fact that he has a Son. The Son himself gave God the name of Father, as being in some sense the more appropriate and truer appellation, when he said not “I and God” but “I and the Father are one,” and also, with reference to himself, “On him has God the Father set his seal.” And when he commanded his disciples to baptize all nations, he did not tell them to do this in the name of God but expressly ordained that they were to do it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 11)

Collect

Graciously hear our supplications, O Lord,
so that we,
who believe that the Savior of the human race
is with you in your glory,
may experience, as he promised,
until the end of the world,
his abiding presence among us.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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

The glory you gave to me, I have given to them

Saint Gregory of Nyssa

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Homilies on the Song of Songs, Homily 15

Seventh Sunday of Easter

When love has entirely cast out fear, and fear has been transformed into love, then the unity brought us by our savior will be fully realized, for all men will be united with one another through their union with the one supreme Good. They will possess the perfection ascribed to the dove, according to our interpretation of the text: One alone is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only child of her mother, her chosen one.

Our Lord’s words in the gospel bring out the meaning of this text more clearly. After having conferred all power on his disciples by his blessing, he obtained many other gifts for them by his prayer to the Father. Among these was included the greatest gift of all, which was that they were no longer to be divided in their judgment of what was right and good, for they were all to be united to the one supreme Good. As the Apostle says, they were to be bound together with the bonds of peace in the unity that comes from the Holy Spirit. They were to be made one body and one spirit by the one hope to which they were all called. We shall do better, however, to quote the sacred words of the gospel itself. I pray, the Lord says, that they all may be one; that as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, so they also may be one in us.

Now the bond that creates this unity is glory. That the Holy Spirit is called glory no one can deny if he thinks carefully about the Lord’s words: The glory you gave to me, I have given to them. In fact, he gave this glory to his disciples when he said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. Although he had always possessed it, even before the world existed, he himself received this glory when he put on human nature. Then, when his human nature had been glorified by the Spirit, the glory of the Spirit was passed on to all his kin, beginning with his disciples. This is why he said: The glory you gave to me, I have given to them, so that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, I want them to be perfectly one.

Whoever has grown from infancy to manhood and attained to spiritual maturity possesses the mastery over his passions and the purity that makes it possible for him to receive the glory of the Spirit. He is that perfect dove upon whom the eyes of the bridegroom rest when he says: One alone is my dove, my perfect one.

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

Saturday after the Ascension

“He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord and, with ardent spirit, spoke and taught accurately about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John.” (Acts 18:25.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Didymus the Blind writes:

“Speaking somewhat accurately the things concerning Jesus is not different from laying out somewhat accurately the things concerning the way, the teaching of Christ, for it is possible that someone, having a generally precise knowledge about the things of Christ, needs a most nuanced explanation of them. Apollos, being a Jew, had the opportunity to know the Old Testament that gives witness concerning Jesus. Therefore, being learned, he was speaking in the Spirit, and he was teaching in the synagogues what he knew about Jesus. Being students of the apostle Paul, Priscilla and Aquila take him, being full of eagerness, aside in order to pass on to him the entire way of the gospel. It is probable that Apollos knew that Jesus had lived among humankind and had commanded these things of the way, but it is unlikely that he knew why he had come among us.” (Catena on the Acts of the Apostles, 18.)

Collect

O God,
Whose Son, at His Ascension to the heavens,
was pleased to promise
the Holy Spirit to the Apostles,
grant, we pray,
that, just as they received
manifold gifts of heavenly teaching,
so on us, too, You may bestow spiritual gifts.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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

Two kinds of life

Saint Augustine of Hippo

(Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church)

An excerpt from his Treatise on John

Saturday after the Ascension

The Church recognizes two kinds of life as having been commended to her by God. One is a life of faith, the other a life of vision; one is a life passed on pilgrimage in time, the other in a dwelling place in eternity; one is a life of toil, the other of repose; one is spent on the road, the other in our homeland; one is active, involving labor, the other contemplative, the reward of labor.

The first kind of life is symbolized by the apostle Peter, the second by John. All of the first life is lived in this world, and it will come to an end with this world. The second life will be imperfect till the end of this world, but it will have no end in the next world. And so Christ says to Peter: Follow me; but of John he says: If I wish him to remain until I come, what is that to you? Your duty is to follow me.

You are to follow me by imitating my endurance of transient evils; John is to remain until my coming, when I will bring eternal blessings. A way of saying this more clearly might be: Your active life will be perfect if you follow the example of my passion, but to attain its full perfection John’s life of contemplation must wait until I come.

Perfect patience is to follow Christ faithfully, even to death, but for perfect knowledge we must await his coming. Here, in the land of the dying, the sufferings of the world must be endured; there, in the land of the living, shall be seen the good things of the Lord.

Christ’s words, I wish him to remain until I come, should not be taken to imply that John was to remain on earth until Christ’s coming, but rather that he was to wait because it is not now but only when Christ comes that the life he symbolizes will find fulfillment. On the other hand, Christ says to Peter: Your duty is to follow me, because the life Peter symbolizes can attain its goal only by action here and now.

Yet we should make no mental separation between these great apostles. Both lived the life symbolized by Peter; both were to attain the life symbolized by John. Symbolically, one followed, the other remained, but living by faith they both endured the sufferings of this present life of sorrow and they both longed for the joys of the future life of happiness.

Nor were they alone in this. They were one with the whole Church, the bride of Christ, which will in time be delivered from the trials of this life and live for ever in the joy of the next. These two kinds of life were represented respectively by Peter and John, yet both apostles lived by faith in this present, passing life and in eternal life both have the joy of vision.

And so for the sake of all the saints inseparably united to the body of Christ, to guide them through the storms of this life, Peter, the chief of the apostles, received the keys of the kingdom of heaven with the power to bind and loose sins; and for the sake of those same saints, to plumb the depths of that other, hidden life, John the evangelist reclined on the breast of Christ.

For it is not only Peter but the whole Church that binds and looses from sin; and as for the sublime teaching of John about the Word, who in the beginning was God with God, and everything else he told us about Christ’s divinity, and about the trinity and unity of the Godhead, which now, until the Lord comes, is all like a faint reflection in a mirror, but which will be seen face to face in the kingdom of heaven—it was not only John who drank in this teaching that came forth from the Lord’s breast as from a fountain. All who belong to the Lord are to drink it in, each according to his capacity, and this is why the Lord himself has spread John’s gospel throughout the world.

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

Friday after the Ascension

“One night in a vision the Lord said to Paul, “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent ...” (Acts 18:9.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Didymus the Blind writes:

“In Corinth, God appeared in a vision to the apostle and urged him not to be afraid to teach, and he made clear to him the reason why he should speak and not be silent, namely that, in that town, there were many that God knew would receive the proclamation of the gospel. For since it was natural that Paul, being human, was afraid of some attack against himself, seeing that then nearly everyone there was still pagan, God encourages and rouses the teacher to be brave by saying, “I am with you and will prevent anybody from attempting to harm you, so that nobody lays a hand on you.” (Catena on the Acts of the Apostles, 18.)

Collect

O God,
Who restore us to eternal life
in the Resurrection of Christ,
raise us up, we pray, to the Author of our salvation,
Who is seated at Your right hand,
so that, when our Savior comes again in majesty,
those You have given new birth in Baptism
may be clothed with blessed immortality.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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

Our faith is increased by the Lord’s Ascension

Pope Saint Leo the Great

Bishop of Rome and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from his On the Ascension, Sermon 2

Friday after the Ascension

At Easter, beloved brethren, it was the Lord’s resurrection which was the cause of our joy; our present rejoicing is on account of his ascension into heaven. With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we have been firmly established, so that the grace of God may show itself still more marvelous when, in spite of the withdrawal from men’s sight of everything that is rightly felt to command their reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not grow cold.

For such is the power of great minds, such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.

And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it would remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment, exile and hunger, fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Throughout the world women no less than men, tender girls as well as boys, have given their life’s blood in the struggle for this faith. It is a faith that has driven out devils, healed the sick and raised the dead.

Even the blessed apostles, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so much teaching, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lord’s passion and could not accept his resurrection without hesitation. Yet they made such progress through his ascension that they now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ’s divinity as he sat at the right hand of his Father, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realization that he had not left his Father when he came down to earth, nor had he abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven.

The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory; he now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. For while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where, as the Father’s equal, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment.

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

The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

“He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God...” (Acts of the Apostles 1:3.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“Why did he not appear to everyone, but only to the apostles? Because he would have seemed a mere apparition to most people, since they did not understand the secret of the mystery. For if even the disciples themselves were at first incredulous and troubled and needed the evidence of actual touch with the hand and of his eating with them, what would have happened to most people? For this reason, it is through the miracles done by the apostles that he renders the evidence of his resurrection unequivocal, so that not only the people of those times, but also all people thereafter, should be certain of the fact that he has risen. For the certainty of the former came from seeing the miracles, while that of everyone else was to be rooted in faith. For this reason, our discussion of the apostles also proceeds from here. For if he did not rise again but remains dead, how did the apostles perform miracles in his name? “They did not perform miracles,” some will say. How then was our religion authorized? For certainly they will not disagree with this and argue against what is obvious. Therefore, when they say that no miracles took place, they embarrass themselves more than anyone else. For this would be the greatest miracle of all, if without any miracles the whole world came running to be taken in the nets of twelve poor and illiterate men. For the fishermen prevailed not by wealth of money, nor by cunning of words, nor by any thing else of this kind. Therefore, the unbelievers, though unwilling, will agree that a divine power was present in these men, since no human strength could ever accomplish such great deeds. For this reason then he remained for forty days after the resurrection, giving evidence in this length of time of their seeing him in his own proper person, lest they believe what they saw was a phantom. Indeed, he was not content even with this but added also the evidence of eating at the table. This Luke reveals when he says, “while gathered with them.” The apostles themselves also always took this as proof of the resurrection, as when they say, “we who ate and drank with him.”” (Catena on the Acts of the Apostles, 1.)

Collect

Gladden us with holy joys, Almighty God,
and make us rejoice with devout thanksgiving,
for the Ascension of Christ Your Son
is our exaltation,
and, where the Head has gone before in glory,
the Body is called to follow in hope.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

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

No one has ever ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Sermon on the Lord’s Ascension

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.

Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear. He showed this when he cried out from above: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? and when he said: I was hungry and you gave me food.

Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.

He did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.

These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are the sons of God. So the Apostle says: Just as the human body, which has many members, is a unity, because all the different members make one body, so is it also with Christ. He too has many members, but one body.

Out of compassion for us he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace. Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.

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

Wednesday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter

“... so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.” (Acts 17:27.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Reading proclaimed at Mass today.:

“You are near, Lord, and all your commandments are truth.” God says elsewhere, “I am a God who is near and not a God who is far away, says the Lord.” For the power of God is everywhere according to the word of creation and providence. Knowing this, Paul, addressing the Greeks as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, says, “We do not seek God far from us, for in him we live and move and are,” and “the Spirit of the Lord has filled the earth.” He is thus, for his part, close, but if we ourselves make no effort, though he be close, to draw near to him, we will not enjoy his nearness. For this reason, sinners are far from God: “Behold, those who distance themselves from you perish.” But the just ones strive to approach God, for he is not present to them just as a creator, but he even shares himself with them: “And Moses alone draws near to God, but the rest do not draw near.” According to the degree of will and perfection, the one who approaches God is that one about whom Paul says, “The one joined to the Lord is one spirit.” (Palestinian Catena on Psalm 118)

Collect

Grant, we pray, O Lord,
that, as we celebrate in mystery
the solemnities of Your Son’s Resurrection,
so, too, we may be worthy
to rejoice at His coming with all the Saints.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

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

The days between the Resurrection and the Ascension of the Lord

Pope Saint Leo the Great

Bishop of Rome and Great Latin Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Sermon on the Ascension, 1.

Wednesday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter

Beloved, the days which passed between the Lord’s resurrection and his ascension were by no means uneventful; during them great sacramental mysteries were confirmed, great truths revealed. In those days the fear of death with all its horrors was taken away, and the immortality of both body and soul affirmed. It was then that the Lord breathed on all his apostles and filled them with the Holy Spirit; and after giving the keys of the kingdom to blessed Peter, whom he had chosen and set above all the others, he entrusted him with the care of his flock.

During these days the Lord joined two of his disciples as their companion on the road, and by chiding them for their timidity and hesitant fears he swept away all the clouds of our uncertainty. Their lukewarm hearts were fired by the light of faith and began to burn within them as the Lord opened up the Scriptures. And as they shared their meal with him, their eyes were opened in the breaking of bread, opened far more happily to the sight of their own glorified humanity than were the eyes of our first parents to the shame of their sin.

Throughout the whole period between the resurrection and ascension, God’s providence was at work to instill this one lesson into the hearts of the disciples, to set this one truth before their eyes, that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was truly born, truly suffered and truly died, should be recognized as truly risen from the dead. The blessed apostles together with all the others had been intimidated by the catastrophe of the cross, and their faith in the resurrection had been uncertain; but now they were so strengthened by the evident truth that when their Lord ascended into heaven, far from feeling any sadness, they were filled with great joy.

Indeed that blessed company had a great and inexpressible cause for joy when it saw man’s nature rising above the dignity of the whole heavenly creation, above the ranks of angels, above the exalted status of archangels. Nor would there be any limit to its upward course until humanity was admitted to a seat at the right hand of the eternal Father, to be enthroned at last in the glory of him to whose nature it was wedded in the person of the Son.

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

Tuesday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter

“But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts...” (John 16:6.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s Gospel Proclamation, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“Great is the tyranny of despondency. We need great courage in order to stand strong against it and, after gathering from it what is useful, to let go of what is superfluous. And so, it has a purpose at times. When we ourselves or others sin, that is a good time to grieve. But when we fall into human difficulties, then despondency is useless. And now when it has overthrown the disciples, who were not yet perfect, see how Christ raises them again by his rebuke. They who before this had asked him ten thousand questions ... these men, I say, now hearing, “they will put you out of the synagogues” and “will hate you” and “whoever kills you will think that he does God’s service”—were so cast down as to be struck dumb, so that they say nothing to him. And so he reproaches them and says, “These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go to him that sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.” Immoderate sorrow is a horrible thing, dreadful and even deadly, as Paul said, “Lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up by too much sorrow.” (Homilies on the Gospel of John, 78.)

Collect

Grant, almighty and merciful God,
that we in truth receive a share
in the Resurrection of Christ Your Son.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

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

Christ is the bond of unity

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 11.

Tuesday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter

All who receive the sacred flesh of Christ are united with him as members of his body. This is the teaching of Saint Paul when he speaks of the mystery of our religion that was hidden from former generations, but has now been revealed to the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; namely, that the Gentiles are joint-heirs with the Jews, that they are members of the same body, and that they have a share in the promise made by God in Christ Jesus.

If, in Christ, all of us, both ourselves and he who is within us by his own flesh, are members of the same body, is it not clear that we are one, both with one another and with Christ? He is the bond that unites us, because he is at once both God and man.

With regard to our unity in the Spirit, we may say, following the same line of thought, that all of us who have received one and the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, are united intimately, both with one another and with God. Taken separately, we are many, and Christ sends the Spirit, who is both the Father’s Spirit and his own, to dwell in each of us. Yet that Spirit, being one and indivisible, gathers together those who are distinct from each other as individuals, and causes them all to be seen as a unity in himself. Just as Christ’s sacred flesh has power to make those in whom it is present into one body, so the one, indivisible Spirit of God, dwelling in all, causes all to become one in spirit.

Therefore, Saint Paul appeals to us to bear with one another charitably, and to spare no effort in securing, by the bonds of peace, the unity that comes from the Spirit. There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope held out to us by God’s call. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and works through all, and is in all. If the one Spirit dwells in us, the one God and Father of all will be in us, and he, through his Son, will gather together into unity with one another and with himself all who share in the Spirit.

There is also another way of showing that we are made one by sharing in the Holy Spirit. If we have given up our worldly way of life and submitted once for all to the laws of the Spirit, it must surely be obvious to everyone that by repudiating, in a sense, our own life, and taking on the supernatural likeness of the Holy Spirit, who is united to us, our nature is transformed so that we are no longer merely men, but also sons of God, spiritual men, by reason of the share we have received in the divine nature. We are all one, therefore, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are one in mind and holiness, we are one through our communion in the sacred flesh of Christ, and through our sharing in the one Holy Spirit.

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

Monday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter

“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, He will testify to Me...” (John 15:26.)

Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel proclamation:

“So the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and bears witness of the Son. A witness, both faithful and true, bears witness also of the Father. There is no more complete expression of the divine majesty, nothing more clear regarding the unity of divine power than this, since the Spirit knows the same as the Son, who is the witness and the inseparable sharer of the Father’s secrets.” (On the Holy Spirit, 1.)

Collect

Grant, O merciful God,
that we may experience at all times
the fruit produced by the paschal observances.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

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

The Holy Spirit renews us in baptism

Didymus the Blind

Desert Father

An excerpt from his treatise On the Trinity, Book 2

Monday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter

The Holy Spirit renews us in baptism through his godhead, which he shares with the Father and the Son. Finding us in a state of deformity, the Spirit restores our original beauty and fills us with his grace, leaving no room for anything unworthy of our love. The Spirit frees us from sin and death, and changes us from the earthly men we were, men of dust and ashes, into spiritual men, sharers in the divine glory, sons and heirs of God the Father who bear a likeness to the Son and are his co-heirs and brothers, destined to reign with him and to share his glory. In place of earth the Spirit reopens heaven to us and gladly admits us into paradise, giving us even now greater honor than the angels, and by the holy waters of baptism extinguishing the unquenchable fires of hell.

We men are conceived twice: to the human body we owe our first conception, to the divine Spirit, our second. John says: To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. These were born not by human generation, not by the desire of the flesh, not by the will of man, but of God. All who believed in Christ, he says, received power to become children of God, that is, of the Holy Spirit, and to gain kinship with God. To show that their parent was God the Holy Spirit, he adds these words of Christ: I give you this solemn warning, that without being born of water and the Spirit, no one can enter the kingdom of God.

Visibly, through the ministry of priests, the font gives symbolic birth to our visible bodies. Invisibly, through the ministry of angels, the Spirit of God, whom even the mind’s eye cannot see, baptizes into himself both our souls and bodies, giving them a new birth.

Speaking quite literally, and also in harmony with the words of water and the Spirit, John the Baptist says of Christ: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Since we are only vessels of clay, we must first be cleansed in water and then hardened by spiritual fire—for God is a consuming fire. We need the Holy Spirit to perfect and renew us, for spiritual fire can cleanse us, and spiritual water can recast us as in a furnace and make us into new men.

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

Keeping — or better — Treasuring
Jesus’ Commandments

εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”

“If you love me, you will keep (τηρήσετε teresete)
my commandments. (John 14:15) ...
Whoever has my commandments and
observes (τηρῶν teron) them
is the one who loves me. (John 14:21)

John 14:15-21.
Sixth Sunday of Easter

θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)

Jesus’ words this Sunday form a bookend for Christian living and the episode hinges on the action of ‘keeping my commandments.’ Jesus begins catechizing the disciples about ‘keeping my commandments’ and closes with the same imperative. Even more significant is that Jesus definitively links loving Him to ‘keeping my commandments.’ To be clear, to love (ἀγαπάω, agapaō) as lived by Jesus and employed in the Gospels is not primarily a feeling or emotion. Agapaō is not a ‘good feeling’ and certainly not a license to do whatever I/we want in the name of ‘let’s all get along.’

Agapaō is an act of the intellect that wills the good of the other and actively follows the Holy Spirit’s initiative to work sacrificially and generously to provide the other with whatever she or he genuinely needs for authentic spiritual and physical living. This meaning of agapaō is timely as Scripture reveres motherhood as a way to describe, from a human perspective, the experience of agapaō. Our moms have done so much for us, not the least of which is their lived example of faith in Jesus Christ. They have birthed us to life. They have formed us in the ways of prayer after the heart of Jesus. They have shaped us in the ways of selfless living, often at a great cost to themselves. In short, our moms have provided us with concrete, in-the-flesh examples of what it means to be a person of agapaō. While our moms formed our lives first and foremost by their own example, their words to us - and - our keeping of their words have become constitutive elements of our beings. But what does it mean to keep their words and for this Sunday, what does it mean to keep Jesus’ commandments?

To keep is the translation of the Greek verb τηρέω (tēreō). While the translation to keep appears in the New American Bible, Revised Edition and other English translations of the Sacred Scripture, the word has a rich significance in the Greco-Roman world. Often, tēreō conveyed a sense of guarding, protecting, watching over, and treasuring to name only a few meanings from antiquity. The point is that the object of tēreō is valuable and so precious that one takes extraordinary steps to protect and guard that which has been received. Hence when Jesus asks His disciples ‘to keep my commandments,’ He is asking more than just an assent of the mind. Knowing Jesus’ commandments is only 1 part of the equation. Permitting Jesus’ commandments to alter behavior in thought, word and deed is key. Once again, the Gospel imperative of metanoia that Jesus sounded at the beginning of His Public Ministry (see Mark 1:14-15) is a sine qua non, an absolute and a non-negotiable when it comes to being a true believer and intentional disciple of Jesus Christ.

For the believer, a first point to consider when it comes to ‘keeping my [Jesus] commandments’ may not be the commandment itself, but Who sounds the commandment. True believing is relational living. Christian living is not defined by gnostic memorizing of do’s and don’ts and heady, abstract dogma and doctrine. It is responding to the graced-offer of an encounter with the Person Jesus (see 1 John 1:1-4 and Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 426). On His part, Jesus has given the world His precious and valuable Word which His Church has sounded through generations in the Sacred Liturgy and Magisterium. He asks that we, His disciples, receive these as valuable and do our part to guard, protect - and above all, live His Words of life through daily conversion.

Humanly, this approach reminds me of a precious life moment years ago at a family gathering. My sister had to offer a gentle correction to her daughters and when she came back to us a few minutes later, she remarked, “Oh ... I've become Mom!” At that moment, my sister’s eyes locked eyes with our Mom. She went over and gave my Mom a big hug and tearfully thanked her for everything that has enabled her to be a Mom to her daughters. Maybe not in all the moments of life, but overall, my sister treasured, guarded and held precious the model of Mom’s life and her words of wisdom that has made her the mother that she is today. Analogously, Jesus has given all humanity the path to full life by treasuring His commandments coupled with the requisite responding yes to His Word so that each day may be one of becoming more and more life Him Who sacrificed so much that we may live.

Sixth Sunday of Easter

“If you love me, you will keep My commandments...” (John 14:15.)

Saint Cyril of Alexandria comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“Having determined and expressly declared that the enjoyment of the heavenly blessings (supplied, that is, through him by the Father) is both due to those who love him and in very truth shall be theirs, he immediately goes on to describe the power of love. He provides excellent and irreproachable instruction to us for our profit with the intent that we should devote ourselves to its pursuit. For even if a person says that he loves God, he will not immediately merit credit for having true love of God, since the power of virtue does not stand on bare speech alone, nor piety on naked words. Rather, it is distinguished by performance of good deeds and an obedient disposition. Keeping the divine commandments is the best way to give living expression to our love toward God. It presents the picture of a life lived in all its fullness and truth. It is not a life sketched out in mere sounds that flow from the tongue. It gleams instead with the altogether radiant and brilliant colors that paint a portrait of good works.” (Commentary on Gospel of John, 9.)

Collect

Grant, almighty God,
that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion
these days of joy,
which we keep in honor of the Risen Lord,
and that what we relive in remembrance
we may always hold to in what we do.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

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

God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Commentary on II Corinthians

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Those who have a sure hope, guaranteed by the Spirit, that they will rise again lay hold of what lies in the future as though it were already present. They say: “Outward appearances will no longer be our standard in judging other men. Our lives are all controlled by the Spirit now, and are not confined to this physical world that is subject to corruption. The light of the Only-begotten has shone on us, and we have been transformed into the Word, the source of all life. While sin was still our master, the bonds of death had a firm hold on us, but now that the righteousness of Christ has found a place in our hearts we have freed ourselves from our former condition of corruptibility.”

This means that none of us lives in the flesh anymore, at least not in so far as living in the flesh means being subject to the weaknesses of the flesh, which include corruptibility. Once we thought of Christ as being in the flesh, but we do not do so any longer, says Saint Paul. By this he meant that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; he suffered death in the flesh in order to give all men life. It was in this flesh that we knew him before, but we do so no longer. Even though he remains in the flesh, since he came to life again on the third day and is now with his Father in heaven, we know that he has passed beyond the life of the flesh; for having died once, he will never die again, death has no power over him any more. His death was a death to sin, which he died once for all; his life is life with God.

Since Christ has in this way become the source of life for us, we who follow in his footsteps must not think of ourselves as living in the flesh any longer, but as having passed beyond it. Saint Paul’s saying is absolutely true that when anyone is in Christ he becomes a completely different person: his old life is over and a new life has begun. We have been justified by our faith in Christ and the power of the curse has been broken. Christ’s coming to life again for our sake has put an end to the sovereignty of death. We have come to know the true God and to worship him in spirit and in truth, through the Son, our mediator, who sends down upon the world the Father’s blessings.

And so Saint Paul shows deep insight when he says: This is all God’s doing: it is he who has reconciled us to himself through Christ. For the mystery of the incarnation and the renewal it accomplished could not have taken place without the Father’s will. Through Christ we have gained access to the Father, for as Christ himself says, no one comes to the Father except through him. This is all God’s doing, then. It is he who has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

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

Saturday after the Fifth Sunday of Easter

“During [the] night Paul had a vision. A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” (Acts 16:9.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us.” Look, no longer through an angel, as it was with Philip and Cornelius. But how? Through a vision it appears to him, in a manner now more human, no longer as divine. For where obedience came more easily, revelation was of a more human sort; where much force was needed, of a more divine sort. Thus when he was only urged to preach, a dream appeared to him; but when he could not bear not to preach, it was the Holy Spirit who revealed it to him. So it was with Peter. “Arise, go down.” For the Holy Spirit did not work what was easy; a dream was enough in his case. Also for Joseph, who obeyed readily, it was in a dream, but for others, including Cornelius and Paul himself, it was in a vision. And notice how it says “a man of Macedonia was standing beseeching him and saying.” Not “ordering” but “beseeching,” that is, on behalf of the very people in need of caring. What does “concluding” mean? It means they made an inference. From the fact that Paul saw him and not someone else, that Paul was “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” and that they were at the borders—from all this they reached their conclusion.” (Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 34.)

Collect

Almighty and eternal God,
Who through the regenerating power of Baptism
have been pleased to confer on us heavenly life,
grant, we pray,
that those You render capable of immortality
by justifying them may by Your guidance
attain the fullness of glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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

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