Easter Week 7: Saturday

“Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.”” (John 21:22)

Saint Augustine of Hippo offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“There are two states of life, therefore, preached and commended as revealed to the church from heaven: the one being in faith, the other in sight; one remaining in time in a foreign land, the other residing in the eternal heavenly dwelling. The first was signified by the apostle Peter, the other by John. And so, it is said to Peter, “Follow me” by imitating me in the endurance of temporal evils. [But of John it is said], “Let him remain” till I come to restore everlasting bliss. And this may be expressed more clearly in this way: Let action that is perfected, informed by the example of my passion, follow me; but let contemplation that has only just begun remain until I come, to be perfected when I come. For the godly fullness of patience, reaching forward even unto death, follows Christ; but the fullness of knowledge remains until Christ comes, to be manifested then. For here the evils of this world are endured in the land of the dying, while the good things of the Lord shall be seen in the land of the living. For in saying, “I want him to remain till I come,” we are not to understand that John was supposed to remain on earth, or to abide permanently, but he was, rather, to wait. Therefore, what is signified by John shall certainly not be fulfilled now, but when Christ comes.

But what is signified by Peter to whom it was said, “Follow me,” except that his [and our] following must be done now, or it will never reach the expected outcome. In such an active life, the more we love Christ the more easily we are delivered from evil. But he loves us less as we now are, and therefore delivers us from this state of being so that we may not always be such as we are. There [in heaven], however, he loves us more; for we shall not have anything about us to displease him, or anything that would cause Christ to separate us from him. He loves us here for the purpose of healing and delivering us from everything he doesn’t love. Here, therefore, he loves us less because it is a place where he does not want us to remain. There [in heaven] he will love us in an even larger measure as the place toward which he would have us to be passing as we leave behind the place where he knows we would otherwise perish. Let Peter therefore love him, that we may obtain deliverance from our present mortality; let John be loved by him, that we may be preserved in the immortality to come.” (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 124)

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Easter Collect

Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that we, who have celebrated the paschal festivities,
may by your gift hold fast to them
in the way that we live our lives.
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.

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The Lord is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Easter Week 4: Wednesday– Feast: Saint Matthias, Apostle –

“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.” (John 15:16)

Saint Augustine of Hippo offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“You did not choose me, but I chose you.” That is amazing grace! For what were we before Christ had chosen us besides being wicked and lost? We did not believe in him, so as to be chosen by him. For if he chose those who already believed, then he was [in effect] chosen himself prior to his choosing [them]. This passage refutes the vain opinion of those who say that we were chosen before the foundation of the world because God foreknew that we should be good, not that he himself would make us good. For if he had chosen us because he foreknew that we should be good, he would have foreknown also that we should first choose him. For without choosing him we cannot be good, unless indeed someone can be called good who has not chosen good. What then has he chosen in those who are not good? You cannot say, I am chosen because I believed. For if you believed in him, you had already chosen him. Nor can you say, Before I believed I did good works and therefore was chosen. For what good work is there before faith when the apostle says, “Whatever is not of faith is sin?” What is there for us to say, then, but that we were wicked and were chosen, that by the grace of having been chosen we might become good?” (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 86)

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Today is the feast of the Apostle, Saint Matthias. In Sermon 3 on the Acts of the Apostles, Saint John Chrysostom offers a reflection on the selection of Saint Matthias to fulfill the office of Apostle.

Collect

O God,
Who assigned Saint Matthias
a place in the college of Apostles,
grant us, through his intercession,
that, rejoicing at how Your love
has been allotted to us,
we may merit to be numbered among the elect.
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.

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Easter Collect

O God, Life of the faithful,
Glory of the humble, Blessedness of the just,
listen kindly to the prayers
of those who call on You,
that they who thirst for what
You generously promise
may always have their fill of Your plenty.
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.

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The Lord is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!