The Christian in the world



An excerpt from A Letter to Diognetus

Wednesday after the Fifth Sunday of Easter

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.

Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.


To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.



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 Fifth Sunday of Easter



“However, some Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived and won over the crowds. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.” (Acts 14:19.)

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

“Believe me, it is possible to suffer things now worse than what Paul suffered. Those enemies pelted him with stones, but it is now possible to pelt with words that are worse than stone. What then must one do? The same that he did. He did not hate those who cast the stones. After they dragged him out, he entered their city again, to be a benefactor to those who had done him such wrongs. If you too had endured the one who harshly insulted you and done you wrongs, you too would have been stoned. For do not say “I have done him no wrong.” For what wrong had Paul done to be stoned? He was announcing a kingdom, he was leading them away from error and bringing them to God. Such things are worthy of crowns, worthy of proclamations by heralds, worthy of ten thousand good things, not worthy of stones. And yet having suffered the opposite, he did the opposite to what was expected. For this is the splendid victory.” (Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 31.)



Collect
O God,
Who restore us to eternal life
in the Resurrection of Christ,
grant Your people constancy in faith and hope,
that we may never doubt the promises
of which we have learned from You.
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

 




I am the vine, you are the branches



Saint Cyril of Alexandria
Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Commentary on the Gospel of John

Tuesday after the Fifth Sunday of Easter

The Lord calls himself the vine and those united to him branches in order to teach us how much we shall benefit from our union with him, and how important it is for us to remain in his love. By receiving the Holy Spirit, who is the bond of union between us and Christ our Savior, those who are joined to him, as branches are to a vine, share in his own nature.

On the part of those who come to the vine, their union with him depends upon a deliberate act of the will; on his part, the union is effected by grace. Because we had good will, we made the act of faith that brought us to Christ, and received from him the dignity of adoptive sonship that made us his own kinsmen, according to the words of Saint Paul: He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

The prophet Isaiah calls Christ the foundation, because it is upon him that we as living and spiritual stones are built into a holy priesthood to be a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. Upon no other foundation than Christ can this temple be built. Here Christ is teaching the same truth by calling himself the vine, since the vine is the parent of its branches, and provides their nourishment.

From Christ and in Christ, we have been reborn through the Spirit in order to bear the fruit of life; not the fruit of our old, sinful life but the fruit of a new life founded upon our faith in him and our love for him. Like branches growing from a vine, we now draw our life from Christ, and we cling to his holy commandment in order to preserve this life. Eager to safeguard the blessing of our noble birth, we are careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and who makes us aware of God’s presence in us.

Let the wisdom of John teach us how we live in Christ and Christ lives in us: The proof that we are living in him and he is living in us is that he has given us a share in his Spirit. Just as the trunk of the vine gives its own natural properties to each of its branches, so, by bestowing on them the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, gives Christians a certain kinship with himself and with God the Father because they have been united to him by faith and determination to do his will in all things. He helps them to grow in love and reverence for God, and teaches them to discern right from wrong and to act with integrity.


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 Fifth Sunday of Easter



“The apostles Barnabas and Paul tore their garments when they heard this and rushed out into the crowd, shouting...” (Acts of the Apostles 14:14.)

In commenting on this verse from today’s First Reading, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“Look! On all occasions they are free of the lust of glory, not only not coveting but even repudiating it when offered, as Peter too said, “Why do you gaze upon us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made him to walk?” These men say the same. And Joseph also said of his dreams, “Is not their interpretation of God?” And Daniel likewise, “And to me also, not through the wisdom that is in me was it revealed.” And Paul always says this, as when he says, “And for these things who is sufficient?” And again, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think [aught] as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.” (Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 30.)



Collect
May Your right hand, O Lord, we pray,
encompass Your family with perpetual help,
so that, defended from all wickedness
by the Resurrection of Your Only Begotten Son,
we may make our way
by means of Your heavenly gifts.
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.



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

 






0 comments

The firstborn of the new creation



Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from On Christ’s Resurrection, Homily 1

Monday after the Fifth Sunday of Easter

The reign of life has begun, the tyranny of death is ended. A new birth has taken place, a new life has come, a new order of existence has appeared, our very nature has been transformed! This birth is not brought about by human generation, by the will of man, or by the desire of the flesh, but by God.

If you wonder how, I will explain in clear language. Faith is the womb that conceives this new life, baptism the rebirth by which it is brought forth into the light of day. The Church is its nurse; her teachings are its milk, the bread from heaven is its food. It is brought to maturity by the practice of virtue; it is wedded to wisdom; it gives birth to hope. Its home is the kingdom; its rich inheritance the joys of paradise; its end, not death, but the blessed and everlasting life prepared for those who are worthy.

This is the day the Lord has made — a day far different from those made when the world was first created and which are measured by the passage of time. This is the beginning of a new creation. On this day, as the prophet says, God makes a new heaven and a new earth. What is this new heaven? you may ask. It is the firmament of our faith in Christ. What is the new earth? A good heart, a heart like the earth, which drinks up the rain that falls on it and yields a rich harvest.

In this new creation, purity of life is the sun, the virtues are the stars, transparent goodness is the air, and the depths of the riches of wisdom and knowledge, the sea. Sound doctrine, the divine teachings are the grass and plants that feed God’s flock, the people whom he shepherds; the keeping of the commandments is the fruit borne by the trees.

On this day is created the true man, the man made in the image and likeness of God. For this day the Lord has made is the beginning of this new world. Of this day the prophet says that it is not like other days, nor is this night like other nights. But still we have not spoken of the greatest gift it has brought us. This day destroyed the pangs of death and brought to birth the firstborn of the dead.

I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God. O what wonderful good news! He who for our sake became like us in order to make us his brothers, now presents to his true Father his own humanity in order to draw all his kindred up after him.



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

 

 






Glory and Love - Jesus' Way of Living



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

“When Judas had left them, Jesus said,
“Now is the Son of Man glorified (ἐδοξάσθη, edoxasthe),
and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
and God will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
I give you a new commandment:
love (ἀγαπᾶτε, agapate) one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.””


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


“The Light of Christ,” thrice solemnly chanted at the start of The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night, continues to resonate and to reverberate throughout the entire cosmos on this Easter Sunday, the fifth of seven such Sundays. The singular light of the Paschal Candle rose in glory to dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds to flood all creation with the blazing light of the eternal King, Jesus Christ. The Church particularly continues to bask in that same Light “arrayed with the lightning of his glory” causing the holy building to shake with joy (The Easter Proclamation (Exsultet)).

We gathered in darkness on that Holy Night only to have it pierced by “The Light of Christ” Who enlightened our bodies, minds and hearts to listen to the announcement of that Night “when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld (The Easter Proclamation (Exsultet)).” Darkness, light and announcement: these are, among a number of realities, sensory experiences that express an essential dimension of glory: the biblical term for the sensible manifestation of God’s holiness and presence. There is something tangible, concrete; something sacramental and Incarnational about the biblical reality of glory.


For the Hebrew people journeying from the slavery of Egypt to the land flowing with milk and honey, the glory (Hebrew kavod/kabod) of God descended upon the Tent of Meeting, resulting in God dwelling (Hebrew shekhinah) among His people. For Isaiah, the glad tidings of hope and freedom paved the way for the glory of God to be revealed “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 40:5).” Christian reflection on that prophetic word grasped its fulfillment in the Incarnation of Jesus: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory (Greek, doxa), the glory as of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).”

Jesus as the glory of the Father dispels popular understandings of glory that are often synonymous or associated with power, might or prestige to name only a few. While the signs (a very rich theological term in the Gospel according to Saint John) He performs throughout the Gospel are “wonders” or “powers” (Greek, dunamis [root for the English dynamic]), glory for Jesus is the act of love (Greek, agape) that finds its ultimate and complete expression in His Cross. In so doing, Jesus has defined the essence of Christian love, a point that must be crystal clear and lived with complete conviction. Saint Augustine underscores this point in his Tractates on the Gospel of John, the subject of this Sunday’s podcast.


As mentioned in a podcast for the Third Sunday of Easter, Greek has a number of specific words that unfortunately are translated into English as love, often without any distinction of meaning or nuance. A television commercial during a famous game a few years ago, however, captured the finer distinctions among the various Greek words


The commercial provides a foundation or a starting point to begin comprehending what Jesus means by love (Greek agape). As an action, agape is effective, not primarily affective. In other words, agape is an act of the will, a decision. First and foremost, agape is a choice, not a feeling, not an emotion. Can agape have an affective, feeling or emotional dimension? Sure. However, the absence of affect, feeling or emotion does not equate to an absence of agape. Just because one does not ‘feel agape’ (however that is defined) does not mean its absence. I often think that when my Mom got up at 2:30am to care for me or any of my brothers or sisters, she may not necessarily have felt too well at that moment. This leads to the second dimension of agape as defined by Jesus. Agape is ordered or directed to the good of the other. Agape is the way of choosing and then acting for another’s good requiring varying degrees of selflessness, self-surrender and self-emptying as echoed in Philippians 2:6-11 and led Saint John Chrysostom to reflect:

“For we admire Him not only because of the miracles but also because of the sufferings. We admire the fact that He was nailed upon the cross, that He was scourged, that He was beaten, that He was spit on, that He received blows on the cheek from those to whom He had done good. For even of those very things that seem to be shameful, it is proper to repeat the same expression, since He Himself called that action “glory.” For what then took place was [proof] not only of kindness and love but also of unspeakable power. At that time death was abolished, the curse was loosed, devils were shamed and led in triumph and made a show of, and the handwriting of our sins was nailed to the cross. And then, since these wonders were happening invisibly, others took place visibly, showing that he was truly the only begotten Son of God, the Lord of all creation. For while that blessed body hung on the tree, the sun turned away its rays, the whole earth was troubled and became dark, the graves were opened, the ground quaked, and an innumerable multitude of the dead leaped forth and went into the city. And while the stones of his tomb were fastened on the vault and the seals still on them, the dead arose, the crucified, the nail-pierced one, and having filled his eleven disciples with his mighty power, he sent them to people throughout all the world, to be the common healers of all their kind, to correct their way of living, to spread through every part of the earth the knowledge of their heavenly doctrines, to break down the tyranny of devils, to teach those great and ineffable blessings, to bring to us the glad tidings of the soul’s immortality and the eternal life of the body, and rewards that are beyond conception and shall never have an end (Homilies on the Gospel of John, 12).”





Fifth Sunday of Easter



“My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you ...” (John 13:33.)

Origen (part 2) ponders this Gospel verse proclaimed at Mass today.

“The statement “Yet a little while I am with you” is clear in the simple sense, so far as the literal sense is concerned, since he would soon no longer be with the disciples. First, he was arrested by the cohort and the tribune and the servants of the Jews who bound him and led him off to Annas first, and after this he was delivered to Pilate. Next, he was condemned to the cross, and then he spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

For in that “little while” in which they would not see him, they would seek Jesus, and for this reason they would weep and lament, although their grief would change to joy when the saying was fulfilled, “And again a little while and you will see me.”4 But to seek Jesus is to seek the Word, and wisdom, and justice, and truth and the power of God, all of which Christ is." (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 32.)

Additional reflections on glory and love for this Sunday of Easter.



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
constantly accomplish the
Paschal mystery within us,
that those you were pleased
to make new in holy Baptism may,
under your protective care,
bear much fruit and
come to the joys of life eternal.
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


Top





Christ is the day



Saint Maximus of Turin
Bishop and Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Sermon 53

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Christ is risen! He has burst open the gates of hell and let the dead go free; he has renewed the earth through the members of his Church now born again in baptism, and has made it blossom afresh with men brought back to life. His Holy Spirit has unlocked the doors of heaven, which stand wide open to receive those who rise up from the earth. Because of Christ’s resurrection the thief ascends to paradise, the bodies of the blessed enter the holy city, and the dead are restored to the company of the living. There is an upward movement in the whole of creation, each element raising itself to something higher. We see hell restoring its victims to the upper regions, earth sending its buried dead to heaven, and heaven presenting the new arrivals to the Lord. In one and the same movement, our Savior’s passion raises men from the depths, lifts them up from the earth, and sets them in the heights.

Christ is risen. His rising brings life to the dead, forgiveness to sinners, and glory to the saints. And so David the prophet summons all creation to join in celebrating the Easter festival: Rejoice and be glad, he cries, on this day which the Lord has made.

The light of Christ is an endless day that knows no night. Christ is this day, says the Apostle; such is the meaning of his words: Night is almost over; day is at hand. He tells us that night is almost over, not that it is about to fall. By this we are meant to understand that the coming of Christ’s light puts Satan’s darkness to flight, leaving no place for any shadow of sin. His everlasting radiance dispels the dark clouds of the past and checks the hidden growth of vice. The Son is that day to whom the day, which is the Father, communicates the mystery of his divinity. He is the day who says through the mouth of Solomon: I have caused an unfailing light to rise in heaven. And as in heaven no night can follow day, so no sin can overshadow the justice of Christ. The celestial day is perpetually bright and shining with brilliant light; clouds can never darken its skies. In the same way, the light of Christ is eternally glowing with luminous radiance and can never be extinguished by the darkness of sin. This is why John the evangelist says: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never been able to overpower it.

And so, my brothers, each of us ought surely to rejoice on this holy day. Let no one, conscious of his sinfulness, withdraw from our common celebration, nor let anyone be kept away from our public prayer by the burden of his guilt. Sinner he may indeed be, but he must not despair of pardon on this day which is so highly privileged; for if a thief could receive the grace of paradise, how could a Christian be refused forgiveness?



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 Fourth Sunday of Easter



“... and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. These are [now] his witnesses before the people.” (Acts 13:31.)

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

“By comparing what the prophetic Scriptures tell us of Jesus with what his history tells us, we find nothing dissolute about him recorded. For even those who conspired against him and looked for false witnesses to aid them did not find any plausible grounds for advancing a false charge of licentiousness against him. His death was indeed the result of a conspiracy and bore no resemblance to the death of Asclepius by lightning. And what is venerable about the madman Dionysus, clothed in female garments, that he should be worshiped as a god? If those who defend such beings resort to allegorical interpretations, we must examine each individual allegory to ascertain whether it is well founded and whether those beings who were torn down by the Titans10 and cast from their heavenly throne11 can have a real existence and deserve respect and worship. But when our Jesus “appeared to the members of his own troop” — for I will take the word that Celsus employs — he really did appear. But Celsus makes a false accusation against the gospel, saying that what appeared was a shadow. Let their histories and that of Jesus be carefully compared. Will Celsus hold that the former are true, but the latter are inventions, even though the histories of Jesus were recorded by eyewitnesses who showed that they clearly understood the nature of what they had seen by their actions and who manifested their state of mind by what they cheerfully underwent for the sake of his gospel? Now who, desiring to act in conformity with right reason, would yield assent at random to what is related in their histories and without examination refuse to believe what is recorded of Jesus?

Again, when it is said of Asclepius that a great multitude both of Greeks and Barbarians acknowledge that they have frequently seen and still see no mere phantom but Asclepius himself healing and doing good and foretelling the future, Celsus expects us to believe this; and he finds no fault with believers in Jesus, when they express their belief in such stories. But when we give our assent to the disciples who were eyewitnesses of the miracles of Jesus and who clearly manifested the honesty of their convictions (because we see their guilelessness, as far as it is possible to see the conscience revealed in writing), we are called by him a set of “silly” individuals.” (Against Celsus, 3.)



Collect
O God,
Author of our freedom and of our salvation,
listen to the voice of our pleading
and grant that those You have redeemed
by the shedding of Your Son’s Blood
may have life through You
and, under Your protection,
rejoice for ever unharmed.
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


Top





The preservation of unity



Saint Clement of Rome
Apostolic Father, Bishop of Rome and Martyr

An excerpt from his Letter to the Corinthians

Friday after the Fourth Sunday of Easter

Beloved, Jesus Christ is our salvation, he is the high priest through whom we present our offerings and the helper who supports us in our weakness. Through him our gaze penetrates the heights of heaven and we see as in a mirror, the most holy face of God. Through Christ the eyes of our hearts are opened, and our weak and clouded understanding reaches up toward the light. Through him the Lord God willed that we should taste eternal knowledge, for Christ is the radiance of God’s glory, and as much greater than the angels as the name God has given him is superior to theirs.

So then, my brothers, let us do battle with all our might under his unerring command. Think of the men serving under our military commanders. How well disciplined they are! How readily and submissively they carry out orders! Not everyone can be a prefect, a tribune, a centurion, or a captain of fifty, but each man in his own rank executes the orders of the emperor and the officers in command. The great cannot exist without those of humble condition, nor can those of humble condition exist without the great. Always it is the harmonious working together of its various parts that insures the well-being of the whole. Take our own body as an example: The head is helpless without the feet; and the feet can do nothing without the heart. Even our least important members are useful and necessary to the whole body, and all work together for its well-being in harmonious subordination.

Let us, then, preserve the unity of the body that we form in Christ Jesus, and let everyone give his neighbor the deference to which his particular gifts entitle him. Let the strong care for the weak and the weak respect the strong. Let the wealthy assist the poor and the poor man thank God for giving him someone to supply his needs. The wise man should show his wisdom not by his eloquence but by good works; the humble man should not proclaim his own humility, but leave others to do so; nor must the man who preserves his chastity ever boast of it, but recognize that the ability to control his desires has been given him by another.

Think, my brothers, of how we first came into being, of what we were at the first moment of our existence. Think of the dark tomb out of which our Creator brought us into his world where he had his gifts prepared for us even before we were born. All this we owe to him and for everything we must give him thanks. To him be glory 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

 






Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)