EASTER TRIDUUM Easter, the First SundayEvening

"Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:31.)

Saint Augustine of Hippo comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed during Easter Mass this evening:

“The Lord Jesus was made known, and after being made known he appeared no more. He withdrew from them in the body, since he was held by them in faith. That indeed is why the Lord absented himself in the body from the whole church, and ascended into heaven, for the building up of faith.” (Sermon 235)

Collect

O God,
Who on this day,
through your Only Begotten Son,
have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity,
grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection
may, through the renewal
brought by Your Spirit,
rise up in the light of life.
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

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GOOD FRIDAY 25 March

As Good Friday falls on 25 March this year, it is interesting to note that this is normally the date that celebrates the moment of the Incarnation of the Divine Person, Jesus Christ as He was conceived in the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.

In On the Holy Trinity, one of Saint Augustine’s important works, the saintly bishop of Hippo speaks about the Incarnation, Birth and Death of Jesus all occurring on the 25th of the March and December. Such helps us to approach the importance of these Mysteries as a whole:

“And not without reason is the number six understood to be put for a year in the building up of the body of the Lord, as a figure of which He said that He would raise up in three days the temple destroyed by the Jews. For they said, Forty and six years was this temple in building. And six times forty-six makes two hundred and seventy-six. And this number of days completes nine months and six days, which are reckoned, as it were, ten months for the travail of women; not because all come to the sixth day after the ninth month, but because the perfection itself of the body of the Lord is found to have been brought in so many days to the birth, as the authority of the church maintains upon the tradition of the elders. For He is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also He suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which He was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which He was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before nor since. But He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th. If, then you reckon from that day to this you find two hundred and seventy-six days which is forty-six times six. And in this number of years the temple was built, because in that number of sixes the body of the Lord was perfected; which being destroyed by the suffering of death, He raised again on the third day. For He spoke this of the temple of His body, as is declared by the most clear and solid testimony of the Gospel; where He said, For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (On the Holy Trinity, Book IV, 9.)

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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EASTER TRIDUUM Good Friday

“He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; He had no majestic bearing to catch our eye, no beauty to draw us to him.” (Isaiah 53:2.)

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus reflects on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“For he whom you now treat with contempt was once above you. He who is now man was once the uncompounded. What he was he continued to be; what he was not he took to himself. In the beginning he was uncaused; for what is the cause of God? But afterwards for a cause he was born. And that cause was that you might be saved, who insult him and despise his godhead, because of this, that he took on him your denser nature, having converse with flesh by means of mind. While his inferior nature, the humanity, became God, because it was united to God and became one person because the higher nature prevailed, [this happened] in order that I too might be made God so far as he is made man. He was born—but he had been begotten. He was born of a woman — but she was a virgin. The first is human, the second divine. In his human nature he had no father, but also in his divine nature [he had] no mother. Both these belong to godhead. He dwelled in the womb — but he was recognized by the prophet [John the Baptist], himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for whose sake he came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes — but he took off the swathing bands of the grave by his rising again. He was laid in a manger — but he was glorified by angels, and proclaimed by a star and worshiped by the magi. Why are you offended by what is presented to your sight, because you will not look at what is presented to your mind? He was driven into exile into Egypt — but he drove away the Egyptian idols. He had no form or comeliness in the eyes of the Jews — but to David he is fairer than the children of humankind. And on the mountain he was bright as the lightning and became more luminous than the sun, initiating us into the mystery of the future.” (Theological Oration 3)

Collect

O God,
Who by the Passion of Christ Your Son, our Lord,
abolished the death inherited from ancient sin
by every succeeding generation,
grant that just as, being conformed to Him,
we have borne by the law of nature
the image of the man of earth,
so by the sanctification of grace
we may bear the image of the Man of heaven.
Through Christ our Lord.

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

HOLY WEEK Monday

“Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased. Upon him I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Eusebius of Caesarea writes:

“Although this very great person is not the one who was in the mind of those hearing the prophecy the first time, he is not here called “Jacob” or “Israel” or “the seed of Abraham,” so clearly the Christ of God is meant here, just as the Evangelist paid witness: “I have set my Spirit on him, and he will execute judgment on the nations.”1 And after many things have taken place in the nations, which were not made fit to be counted in the apostolic chorus, the nations will hope in him. But in Isaiah’s prophecy the names of Jacob and Israel are missing. Who else could this be, the one called servant of God and his chosen one? Therefore it continues, “My soul delights in him.” For only he is the chosen one of God, and the socalled soul of God was delighting in him. In a manner similar to referring to the feet, hands, fingers and eyes of God, Scriptures make use of the term “soul” in relation to God. He is “chosen, ”not in the same way as the apostles, since it is to him alone that it is said, “whom my soul esteems,” but also “the Spirit of God was dwelling in him alone.” “For in him the fullness of the deity dwelled bodily.” For the Spirit is given to the one coming forth “from the root of Jesse,” the unique Word of God, whom the apostle revealed saying, “The Lord is the Spirit.” For he alone, pouring out the Spirit of inheritance, worked all things outwardly concerning the worldwide judgment on the nations, so that all would be prepared for the coming of God’s verdict.” (Commentary on Isaiah, 2)

Collect

Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that, though in our weakness we fail,
we may be revived through the Passion
of your Only Begotten 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

 

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Jesus Christ prays for us and in usand is the object of our prayers

Saint Augustine of Hippo

(Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church)

An excerpt from a Commentary on Psalm 85

LENT, WEEK 5: Wednesday

God could give no greater gift to men than to make his Word, through whom he created all things, their head and to join them to him as his members, so that the Word might be both Son of God and son of man, one God with the Father, and one man with all men. The result is that when we speak with God in prayer we do not separate the Son from him, and when the body of the Son prays it does not separate its head from itself: it is the one Savior of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us and in us and is himself the object of our prayers.

He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head, he is the object of our prayers as our God.

Let us then recognize both our voice in his, and his voice in ours. When something is said, especially in prophecy, about the Lord Jesus Christ that seems to belong to a condition of lowliness unworthy of God, we must not hesitate to ascribe this condition to one who did not hesitate to unite himself with us. Every creature is his servant, for it was through him that every creature came to be.

We contemplate his glory and divinity when we listen to these words: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. Here we gaze on the divinity of the Son of God, something supremely great and surpassing all the greatness of his creatures. Yet in other parts of Scripture we hear him as one sighing, praying, giving praise and thanks.

We hesitate to attribute these words to him because our minds are slow to come down to his humble level when we have just been contemplating him in his divinity. It is as though we were doing him an injustice in acknowledging in a man the words of one with whom we spoke when we prayed to God; we are usually at a loss and try to change the meaning. Yet our minds find nothing in Scripture that does not go back to him, nothing that will allow us to stray from him.

Our thoughts must then be awakened to keep their vigil of faith. We must realize that the one whom we were contemplating a short time before in his nature as God took to himself the nature of a servant; he was made in the likeness of men and found to be a man like others; he humbled himself by being obedient even to accepting death; as he hung on the cross he made the psalmist’s words his own: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

We pray to him as God, he prays for us as a servant. In the first case he is the Creator, in the second a creature. Himself unchanged, he took to himself our created nature in order to change it, and made us one man with himself, head and body. We pray then to him, through him, in him, and we speak along with him and he along with us.

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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LENT — The Lord’s Day — Week 5: Sunday Pondering Jesus’ victorious Word

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

“It is not that I have already taken hold of it
or have already attained perfect maturity,
but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,
since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I for my part
do not consider myself to have taken possession.
Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind
but straining forward (ἐπεκτεινόμενος, epekteinomenos)
to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.”

(Philippians 3:12-14.)

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

Saint Paul had a special place in his heart for the Christians at Philippi. He could count on them for assistance in any endeavor throughout his missionary travel and ministry. In the Letter to the Philippians he encourages them to live humbly with lives focused always on the Person Jesus (2:6-11). Such living is balanced between extremes of legalism (beginning section of chapter 3) and hedonism (last part of chapter 3) with Jesus Himself the goal in the center. In this Sunday’s proclamation, we listen to the middle section of chapter 3 in which Saint Paul views his own life as a response to what Jesus has already done. Jesus has taken hold of Paul and for Paul, the only response is one of continuous growth (straining forward) in the life of Jesus Christ.

Centuries after Saint Paul, a saintly bishop in the province of Cappadocia (located in modern day Turkey), Gregory of Nyssa, penned a number of works concerning the virtuous life (what we would call today spiritual living). Among his more famous works is The Life of Moses wherein Gregory grounded his entire theology in Saint Paul’s “staining forward” (epektasis) and presented Moses as a type or analogy of the entire spiritual life. Consider the following from The Life of Moses:

“The perfection of everything which can be measured by the senses is marked off by certain definite boundaries. Quantity, for example, admits both continuity and limitation. The person who looks at the number ten knows that its perfection consists in the fact that it has both a beginning and an end. But in the case of virtue we have learned from the Apostle that its one limit of perfection is the fact that it has no limit. For that divine Apostle, great and lofty in understanding, ever running the course of virtue, never ceased straining toward those things that are still to come. Coming to a stop in the race was not safe for him. Why? Because no Good has a limit in its own nature but is limited by the presence of its opposite, as life is limited by death and light by darkness. And every good thing generally ends with all those things which are perceived to be contrary to the good (I, 5).”

Later in the same work Gregory writes, “If nothing comes from above to hinder its upward thrust (for the nature of the Good attracts to itself those who look to it), the soul rises ever higher and will always make its flight yet higher – by its desire of the heavenly things straining ahead for what is still to come, as the Apostle says. Made to desire and not abandon the transcendent height by the things already attained, it makes its way upward without ceasing, ever through its prior accomplishments renewing its intensity for the flight. Activity directed toward virtue causes its capacity to grow through exertion; this kind of activity alone does not slacken its intensity by the effort, but increases it (II, 225, 226).”

These excerpts from Gregory’s work, with their emphasis on eternal progress, properly form an approach to living life with Jesus. His life is not grasped or taken. His life is given as gift and thereby received and done so graciously. The reception of Jesus is never a goal in-and-of-itself. It is not the conquering of bad habits and vices leading to personal, triumphant celebration. Rather as Saint Paul so keenly knew and Saint Gregory elaborated, the life of Jesus is a continuous response to His call, a ‘call up’ that is ever growing, deepening, and maturing.

LENT Week 5: Sunday

“See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the wilderness I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.” (Isaiah 43:19.)

Saint Jerome offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:

“Although he took a body, although he became man to redeem humanity and recall it from death, still, being God, he came to earth in an unusual way so that, as he had said, ‘Behold, I make all things new,’ he might thus be born from the womb of an immaculate virgin, and be believed to be, as it is written, ‘God with us.’” (Letter 44)

Reflection for Sunday’s Letter to the Philippians

Collect

By your help, we beseech You, Lord our God,
may we walk eagerly in that same charity
with which, out of love for the world,
Your Son handed himself over to death.
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

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LENT Lent 4: Wednesday

“Thus says the LORD: In a time of favor I answer you, on the day of salvation I help you; I form you and set you as a covenant for the people, To restore the land and allot the devastated heritages...” (Isaiah 49:8.)

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

“God says through the prophet, “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” What other time, then, is more acceptable than when for piety toward God in Christ we are led under guard in procession before the world, celebrating a triumph rather than being led in triumph? For the martyrs in Christ disarm the principalities and powers with him, and they share his triumph as fellows of his sufferings, becoming in this way also fellows of the courageous deeds wrought in his sufferings. These deeds include triumphing over principalities and powers, which in a short time you will see conquered and put to shame. What other day is so much a day of salvation as the one when we gain such deliverance from them?” (Exhortation to Martyrdom, 42.)

Collect

O God,
Who reward the merits of the just
and offer pardon to sinners who do penance,
have mercy, we pray, on those who call upon You,
that the admission of our guilt
may serve to obtain Your pardon for our sins.
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

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LENT — The Lord’s Day — Week 4: Sunday Pondering Jesus’ victorious Word

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

“Brothers and sisters:
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away;
behold, new things have come.
And all this is from God,
who has reconciled (καταλλάξαντος) us to himself through Christ
and given us the ministry of reconciliation (καταλλαγῆς),
namely, God was reconciling (καταλλάσσων the world to himself in Christ,
not counting their trespasses against them
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (καταλλαγῆς).
So we are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled (καταλλάγητε) to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

”

(2 Corinthians 5:17-21.)

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

Popularly referred to as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” Jesus’ teaching about His Father’s boundless and limitless mercy is one of Christianity’s signature and defining marks. When examining Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness, this Parable certainly stands front and center, grounded in the often-contentious friction of family inheritance. The Lucan presentation of this Parable, though, does not speak of “forgiveness” per se and for that matter the words “mercy” and “reconciliation,” to name only two, are absent as well. For Luke, the Parable’s genesis lies in Jesus’ action of Table Fellowship: ‘welcoming sinners and eating with them’ that provides all an experience of ‘being found (a very important image in Luke’s Gospel)’ and ‘coming back to life.’ Such is the abundantly rich biblical vocabulary when it comes to sin and God the Father’s desire that none of us be lost and all be saved. But such a rich vocabulary can blur, in the popular perception, the depth of meaning these words convey. One runs the risk of casually lumping all the words together and viewing them as mere synonyms of each other. In light of this, Saint Paul’s words to the Corinthians offer some valuable lessons.

In this Lenten Sunday’s proclamation, Saint Paul speaks some variation of “to reconcile” 5 times in 4 verses, a point that is hard to miss. καταλλάσσω (katallasso) is the Greek verb that is translated “to reconcile.” It is an interesting verb formed by the preposition κατα (kata) and the verb ἀλλάσσω (allasso). Fundamentally, ἀλλάσσω (allasso) means to “effect/cause/put-in-place a difference that is noticeable.” The noticeable change or difference comes about because ‘something’ has been removed. An aspect of a given reality, previously present but now removed, results in a different reality. In terms of the word’s usage in antiquity, the resulting difference is not necessarily a good or an evil but as it evolved in Christian living, it became associated with the ‘removal of sin that made a difference in one’s life.’ In terms of the Christian Scriptures, especially the Letters of Saint Paul, καταλλάσσω (katallasso) marks the “difference” by ‘exchanging one reality for another.’ When applied to and dealing with people, καταλλάσσω (katallasso) very often speaks of ‘exchanging hostility for a different, more proper (friendly) relationship.’ From this context emerges the often used English word “to reconcile” as a meaning for καταλλάσσω (katallasso).

One could argue that καταλλάσσω (katallasso) brings a certain ‘conscious’ activity to the big picture of forgiveness. While certainly affirming the primacy of Grace and the Father’s gracious initiation of any noble endeavor, there is a ‘human’ factor involved in forgiveness. Accepting God the Father’s forgiveness or the forgiveness offered by another person requires the recipient to actively and consciously exchange one reality for another. “I am sorry” is not an act of ‘dumping’ one’s sins in a spiritual landfill and walking away with a sense that ‘I got rid of my sins and offenses.’ A noticeable difference is necessary in life, exchanging 1 ‘state’ or condition for another. Examples of this are clear in the lives of the father’s 2 sons in the parable. The younger son initially exchanged his filial relationship for one of entitlement leading to debauchery. “Coming to his senses (see Anthony Lilles blog on this point),” he exchanged his enslaved condition for what he thought would be that of his father’s hired hands … only to discover that the father would have no part of that since the ring and garments expressed the noticeable difference that he was, is and always will be “son.” Similarly, the elder son exchanged his filial relationship as well and the exchange was not a good one. He viewed himself, not as son, but as one who toiled for his father and in the end expressed his hostility towards his father and ‘that son of yours (in other words, ‘not my brother’).’
One can not help but call to mind the creative word spoken in the Sacramental penitential encounter with Jesus:

God, the Father of mercies,
through the death and resurrection of His Son
has reconciled the world to Himself
and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins;
through the ministry of the Church
may God give you pardon and peace,
and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the
Father,
and of the Son, +
and of the Holy Spirit.

God the Father’s work of exchanging the hostility of the fallen world for the re-created world is the power of the Paschal Mystery. As the first sin caused hostility and alienation in the relationship between God and humanity, so the same continues in our “yes” to sin. We harm ourselves when sin is casually dismissed, diluted or rationalized as ‘developmental challenges.’ Sin in the context of this Sunday’s Lenten Word introduces hostility: hostility in our relationship with the Divine Persons, hostility with and towards one another, hostility towards the true self and hostility with all of creation. As the first act of creation exchanged nothingness for reality, chaos for cosmos by the utterance of the effective Divine Word (dabar), the same Loving Father pronounces the same word to each of us that will exchange the condition of sin for that of freedom as son or daughter in the Son. Will I avail myself of that encounter to hear that creative word that will reconcile me to God the Father and one another?

LENT Lent 4: Sunday

“Then the LORD said to Joshua: Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you. Therefore the place is called Gilgal to the present day.” (Joshua 5:9.)

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

“All persons, even if they come from the law, even if they have learned through Moses, still have the reproach of Egypt in them, the reproach of sins. Who will be like Paul even according to the observance of the law? Just hear him saying, “According to the righteousness based upon the law, I lived without blame.” Nevertheless, he himself publicly announces and says, “For we were even ourselves at some time foolish, unbelieving, wandering, enslaved to desires and various forms of pleasure, in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” Do these things not seem to you to be reproaches, even the reproaches of Egypt? But since Christ came and gave to us the second circumcision through “the baptism of regeneration” and purified our souls, we have cast away all these things and in exchange for them we have received the affirming of a good conscience toward God. At that time, through the second circumcision, the reproaches of Egypt were taken away from us, and the blemishes of sins were purified. No one, therefore, fears the reproaches of past transgressions, if he has been wholly converted and has repented from the heart, and, by faith, has parted the waters of the Jordan and been purified through the second circumcision of the gospel. You hear that, “Today, I have taken the reproach of Egypt away from you.” (Homilies on Joshua)


Reflection for this Sunday’s Sacred Word

Collect

O God,
Who through Your Word
reconcile the human race
to Yourself in a wonderful way,
grant, we pray,
that with prompt devotion and eager faith
the Christian people may hasten
toward the solemn celebrations to come.
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

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Christ is the way to the light,the truth, and the life

Saint Augustine of Hippo

(Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church)

An excerpt from a Treatise on John

LENT, WEEK 4: Sunday

The Lord tells us: I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. In these few words he gives a command and makes a promise. Let us do what he commands so that we may not blush to covet what he promises and to hear him say on the day of judgment: “I laid down certain conditions for obtaining my promises. Have you fulfilled them?” If you say: “What did you command, Lord our God?” he will tell you: “I commanded you to follow me. You asked for advice on how to enter into life. What life, if not the life about which it is written: With you is the fountain of life?”

Let us do now what he commands. Let us follow in the footsteps of the Lord. Let us throw off the chains that prevent us from following him. Who can throw off these shackles without the aid of the one addressed in these words: You have broken my chains? Another psalm says of him: The Lord frees those in chains, the Lord raises up the downcast.

Those who have been freed and raised up follow the light. The light they follow speaks to them: I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness. The Lord gives light to the blind. Brethren, that light shines on us now, for we have had our eyes anointed with the eye-salve of faith. His saliva was mixed with earth to anoint the man born blind. We are of Adam’s stock, blind from our birth; we need him to give us light. He mixed saliva with earth, and so it was prophesied: Truth has sprung up from the earth. He himself has said: I am the way, the truth, and the life.

We shall be in possession of the truth when we see face to face. This is his promise to us. Who would dare to hope for something that God in his goodness did not choose to promise or bestow?

We shall see face to face. The Apostle says: Now I know in part, now obscurely through a mirror, but then face to face. John the apostle says in one of his letters: Dearly beloved, we are now children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. We know that when he is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. This is a great promise.

If you love me, follow me. “I do love you,” you protest, “but how do I follow you?” If the Lord your God said to you: “I am the truth and the life,” in your desire for truth, in your love for life, you would certainly ask him to show you the way to reach them. You would say to yourself: “Truth is a great reality, life is a great reality; if only it were possible for my soul to find them!”

Reflection for this Sunday’s Sacred Word

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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LENT Week 3: Saturday

“Come, let us return to the LORD, For it is he who has torn, but he will heal us; he has struck down, but he will bind our wounds” (Hosea 6:1.)

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

“In the beginning he seized Adam’s human nature; for he at once declared it accursed, ascribing it to death and corruption. Thus the wrath has struck, but grace plugged the wound with lint. For Christ has brought the healing. He invited [us] to know the true divine revelation; he confirmed [us] through the Spirit to observe the commandments. He showed us again to be zealous followers by placing us beyond corruption and freeing us from the previous infirmities, namely, sin and passions.” (Commentary on Hosea)

Collect

Rejoicing in this annual celebration
of our Lenten observance,
we pray, O Lord,
that, with our hearts
set on the paschal mysteries,
we may be gladdened by their full effects.
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

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Serve Christ in the poor

Saint Gregory Nazianzen

(Bishop and Father of the Church)

An excerpt from Oration 14: On Love of the Poor

Lent, the Third Week: Saturday

Blessed are the merciful, because they shall obtain mercy, says the Scripture. Mercy is not the least of the beatitudes. Again: Blessed is he who is considerate to the needy and the poor. Once more: Generous is the man who is merciful and lends. In another place: All day the just man is merciful and lends. Let us lay hold of this blessing, let us earn the name of being considerate, let us be generous.

Not even night should interrupt you in your duty of mercy. Do not say: Come back and I will give you something tomorrow. There should be no delay between your intention and your good deed. Generosity is the one thing that cannot admit of delay.

Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into your house, with a joyful and eager heart. He who does acts of mercy should do so with cheerfulness. The grace of a good deed is doubled when it is done with promptness and speed. What is given with a bad grace or against one’s will is distasteful and far from praiseworthy.

When we perform an act of kindness we should rejoice and not be sad about it. If you undo the shackles and the thongs, says Isaiah, that is, if you do away with miserliness and counting the cost, with hesitation and grumbling, what will be the result? Something great and wonderful! What a marvellous reward there will be: Your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will rise up quickly. Who would not aspire to light and healing?

If you think that I have something to say, servants of Christ, his brethren and coheirs, let us visit Christ whenever we may; let us care for him, feed him, clothe him, welcome him, honor him, not only at a meal, as some have done, or by anointing him, as Mary did, or only by lending him a tomb, like Joseph of Arimathaea, or by arranging for his burial, like Nicodemus, who loved Christ half-heartedly, or by giving him gold, frankincense and myrrh, like the Magi before all these others.

The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice, and mercy is greater than myriads of fattened lambs. Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places, in Christ our Lord himself, to whom 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

 

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FEAST(in Archdiocese of Philadelphia) Saint Katharine Drexel

“But they did not listen to me, nor did they pay attention. They walked in the stubbornness of their evil hearts and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.” (Jeremiah 7:24.)

Saint Jerome offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:

“When I said, “Hear my voice and I will be your God,” “they did not listen or incline their ears” but followed the desires of their own hearts and, contrary to the principle of the apostle, who forgot what was in the past and strived for what lay before him, they did the opposite, pining for the past and despising the future. He also reports that they acted offensively against the Lord “from the day on which their ancestors left the land of Egypt until the present time.” Hence, the grace of the gospel was necessary to save them, not due to their own merits but to the Lord’s mercy.” (Six Books on Jeremiah, 2.)

Collect

God of love,
you called Saint Katharine Drexel
to teach the message of the Gospel
and to bring the life of the Eucharist
to the Native American and
African American peoples;
by her prayers and example,
enable us to work for justice
among the poor and the oppressed,
and keep us undivided in love
in the eucharistic community of your Church.
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

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Complete consecration of self, body and soul

Saint Katharine Drexel

An excerpt from an Instruction

Feast (in Archdiocese of Philadelphia):
Saint Katharine Drexel

The complete consecration of self, body and soul, is the distinctive grace of our vocation and consists in giving of self to God by an act of love which embraces our entire being and our whole life, and in acting thenceforth in the spirit of our consecration. We should strive to be unreservedly submissive to the holy will of God in all that concerns us in the present and in the future; to be instruments conducted to our Lord alone, who will manifest his will by the directions of those in authority, the movements of his grace and the occurrences of each instant.

Let us profit of Holy Mass to address to God our ardent prayers to draw upon ourselves and upon the Indian and Black peoples the graces that will save them (us), uniting ourselves to the Adorable Victim in the Holy Sacrifice: “By Him, with Him and in Him,” let us offer to the Blessed Trinity the homage of praise, reparation, thanksgiving and supplication to the Infinite Majesty of God.

“Ask and you shall receive,” is the exhortation of our Lord. We see the practical demonstration of this in his own life, for when he sat weary by the well of Jacob, hot and tired, he condescended to ask a Samaritan woman to give him to drink, but immediately leads her to ask of him the “living water.” All-powerful as he was, and thirsting for her salvation, he, the divine Word, would not give her the “living water” unless she asked it of him. We know him and are enabled by faith to pierce the veil and ask of him the “living water.” Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament yearns no less now to give this “living water” to souls like that Samaritan woman.

Therefore, we pray for ourselves, for the community, for all its works: for the graces that will enable you to carry the teachings of our Lord to the Indian and Black Peoples; graces that will cause your word to fructify; graces that will make of you apostles imbued with a lively faith to animate those with whom you come in contact, and with an ardent love of God to enable you not only to love him personally, but to bring others to participate in this love for 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

 

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LENT Lent 3: Wednesday

“Now therefore, Israel, hear the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to observe, that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 4:1.)

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

“See what we are generally taught about God: “God is not as a man to be deceived nor as the son of man to be threatened,” and we learn that God is not as man. But other texts say that God is as a man: “For the Lord your God has taught you as a man teaches his son,” and again, “As a man he takes on the manners of his son.” Hence, wherever the Scriptures speak theologically about God in relation to himself and do not involve his plan for human matters, they teach that he is “not as a man.” For “there will be no limit to his greatness,” and “he is more feared than all of the gods,” and “praise him, all you angels of God; praise him, all his hosts; praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all stars and light.” You can find many other passages in the sacred Scriptures to which you can relate the words “God is not as a man.”” (Homily 18)

Collect

Grant, we pray, O Lord,
that, schooled through Lenten observance
and nourished by Your word,
through holy restraint
we may be devoted to You with all our heart
and be ever united in prayer.
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

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LENT — The Lord’s Day — Week 3: Sunday Pondering Jesus’ victorious Word

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

“Some people told Jesus about the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Do you think that because these Galileans
suffered (πεπόνθασιν, peponthasin from πάσχω, páschō) in this way
they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?
By no means!
But I tell you, if you do not repent (μετανοῆτε, metanoete),
you will all perish as they did!
Or those eighteen people who were killed
when the tower at Siloam fell on them
do you think they were more guilty
than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?
By no means!
But I tell you, if you do not repent (μετανοῆτε),
you will all perish as they did!”

(Luke 13:1-5.)

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

Popularly, they seem to be always joined in some form of question or inquiry: sin and suffering. Many people, faced with the unanswerable question of ‘why suffering,’ inevitably say something to the effect, ‘but s/he (or I) is (am) such a good person. Why would God cause this?’ Jesus Himself acknowledges peoples’ popular perception of suffering and sin in the uniquely Lucan reported events of the falling tower and mixing of sacrificial blood. Is Jesus giving an answer to the age-old question of ‘why bad things happen to good people?’ Yes and no ...

When Jesus asked about the suffering of the Galileans, He seems to imply that ‘things happen’ and does not give any further explanation. πάσχω (páschō) is the Greek verb that is translated into English as “to suffer.” Many biblical and linguistic scholars note that πάσχω originally described an event that happened in such a way so as to make an impression on a person. The event, generally speaking, was rather neutral in its significance and was always external; that is, someone/thing external to a person or community. Whether the event was ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depended on how it was received by the person(s) involved. What πάσχω conveyed was simply something happening to you (individually or communally) and you had no control over the event. The fact that one had no control over the event contributed to the verb’s meaning eventually to include “suffering.”

What is interesting here is that Jesus acknowledges that ‘things happen.’ These happenings in the vast majority of cases are by no means neutral: they cause untold pain, devastation and death. Why? Jesus does not answer that question and in not answering it implies that these types of things can, do and will happen. So why does Jesus call for repentance (μετάνοια, metanoia)? Why jump from “suffering” to “repentance”? Does not such a leap reinforce the stereotype that all suffering is a result of sin?

Consider the parable that closes this Sunday’s proclamation. One aspect of the parable certainly focuses on growth. There is a reasonable expectation that a fig tree, especially after 3 years, will produce good fruit. For some reason, the tree has not produced fruit and is given another year, but only 1 additional year. In other words, the tree’s existence is fixed within the constraints of time. Not only does the farmer contend with the vicissitudes of the earth when it comes to crops and to trees, he does so within the limits of finite existence. Of course the farmer (and all of us!) would relish the thought that every seed planted would yield an abundant harvest. Yet despite our best efforts at care and cultivation there are events beyond our control that will definitely affect and effect the harvest.

So what do the mixed blood and falling tower have to do with μετάνοια (click here for a previous blog entry on μετάνοια)? Those 2 events, which in many respects are analogous for any number of events, point to the finite dimension of life this-side-of-the-grave. While a part of us wants a life and a world of perfection, we lost that “in the beginning” when we decided it was better to listen to something else rather than the life-giving Word of the Creator. More troubling for our lives though is that we want ‘a god (or gods!)’ that is able to wave a wand or sprinkle pixie-dust that magically makes everything better in an instant. Such is ‘a god’ of our creation and projection, not the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. While we tend to desire a Shangri-La — and a Shangri-La of our creation on our terms — Jesus is clear that we live an existence that is bounded by space and time for the purpose of being ‘in communion with His Father.’ This was and is the plan for each of us from that unique moment “in the beginning.” With the uncertainly of life, each of us exists in a particular place for a particular time to be ‘in communion with God our Father.’ While it is natural and easy to ask ‘why’ when things go wrong, μετάνοια is actually the response to ‘why’ as the ‘things that go wrong’ are a reminder, painful as they are, that our ultimate life and purpose is found within a community and relationship of Divine Persons. Engaging the ‘work’ of μετάνοια enables the false self to be cut away, making room to live freely as sons and daughters in the Son.

Lent Week 3: Sunday

“There the angel of the LORD appeared to him as fire flaming out of a bush.a When he looked, although the bush was on fire, it was not being consumed.” (Exodus 3:2.)

Saint Clement of Alexandria offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“When the almighty Lord of the universe began to legislate through the Word and decided to make his power visible to Moses, he sent Moses a divine vision with the appearance of light, in the burning bush. Now a bramble bush is full of thorns. So too when the Word was concluding his legislation and his stay among men as their Lord, again he permitted himself to be crowned with thorns as a mystic symbol. Returning to the place from which he had descended, the Word renewed that by which he had first come, appearing first in the bush of thorns and later being surrounded with thorns that he might show that all was the work of the same one power. He is one, and his Father is one, the eternal beginning and end.” (Christ the Educator)

Reflection on this Sunday’s Gospel

Collect

O God,
Author of every mercy and of all goodness,
Who in fasting, prayer and almsgiving
have shown us a remedy for sin,
look graciously on this confession of our lowliness,
that we, who are bowed down by our conscience,
may always be lifted up by Your mercy.
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

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Christ, the model of brotherly love

Saint Aelred of Rievaulx

(Abbot)

An excerpt from The Mirror of Love

Lent, the First Week: Friday

The perfection of brotherly love lies in the love of one’s enemies. We can find no greater inspiration for this than grateful remembrance of the wonderful patience of Christ. He who is more fair than all the sons of men offered his fair face to be spat upon by sinful men; he allowed those eyes that rule the universe to be blindfolded by wicked men; he bared his back to the scourges; he submitted that head which strikes terror in principalities and powers to the sharpness of the thorns; he gave himself up to be mocked and reviled, and at the end endured the cross, the nails, the lance, the gall, the vinegar, remaining always gentle, meek and full of peace.

In short, he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearers he kept silent, and did not open his mouth.

Who could listen to that wonderful prayer, so full of warmth, of love, of unshakeable serenity—Father, forgive them—and hesitate to embrace his enemies with overflowing love? Father, he says, forgive them. Is any gentleness, any love, lacking in this prayer?

Yet he put into it something more. It was not enough to pray for them: he wanted also to make excuses for them. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. They are great sinners, yes, but they have little judgment; therefore, Father, forgive them. They are nailing me to the cross, but they do not know who it is that they are nailing to the cross: if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory; therefore, Father, forgive them. They think it is a lawbreaker, an impostor claiming to be God, a seducer of the people. I have hidden my face from them, and they do not recognise my glory; therefore, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

If someone wishes to love himself he must not allow himself to be corrupted by indulging his sinful nature. If he wishes to resist the promptings of his sinful nature he must enlarge the whole horizon of his love to contemplate the loving gentleness of the humanity of the Lord. Further, if he wishes to savor the joy of brotherly love with greater perfection and delight, he must extend even to his enemies the embrace of true love.

But if he wishes to prevent this fire of divine love from growing cold because of injuries received, let him keep the eyes of his soul always fixed on the serene patience of his beloved Lord and Savior.

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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LENT — The Lord’s Day — Week 1: Sunday Pondering Jesus’ victorious Word

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

“Filled with the Holy Spirit,
Jesus returned from the Jordan and
was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted (πειραζόμενος, peirazomenos)
by the devil (διαβόλου, diabolou)”

(Luke 4:1-2.)

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

διάβολος (diabolos), translated often throughout both Testaments of Scripture as ‘adversary’ or ‘devil,’ is a compound that means “to throw apart.” It is the opposite of παραβολή (parabole), which can be translated as “parable” or “symbol.” All throughout the Scriptures, διάβολος is an active power working ‘intelligently’ (with a plan) to divide and to separate. Often this active power is a person, who ‘connects’ to or with other persons (Divine, human or angelic) to divide and then conquer. The image that many have of the devil being that ‘bad voice’ whispering in the ear to do something bad does not really capture the horror of διάβολος. The popular image of being tempted to do this or to do that, misses the mark that the work of διάβολος is to separate one completely from the Other and others. διάβολος is about derailing life’s plan in a way that makes a train wreck out of life. Worse still in the Gospel account, διάβολος is the attempt to drive a permanent wedge between God the Father and the loving plan of salvation He has for each person. Here the words of Saint Paul must be the believer’s battle armor: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).”

Consider for a moment when this particular event occurs in Jesus’ life. The Gospel pericope proclaimed today begins: “Jesus returned from the Jordan.” In the Lucan chronology, Jesus had been baptized by John and was about to begin the Public Ministry in Galilee. Between those 2 events stands Jesus’ ‘test’ of 40 days in the barren wilderness of the desert. The Greek verb πειράζω (peirazo), translated here ‘tempted,’ has an array of meanings including “to test,” “to scrutinize,” and “to prove.” Why would Jesus have to undergo any form of ‘testing, scrutinizing and proving’? A response (not the answer) to that question lies in 2 other Books of Sacred Scripture: The Book of Job and The Letter to the Hebrews. In Job, διάβολος is a person whose role is to antagonize God. God speaks glowingly of the people who follow His way of living. The Antagonist says that humans only do that because of Divine blessings received in the form of various material goods. Take them away and humanity will curse God. Thus begins the ‘testing of Job.’ Will he separate himself from God by cursing God for what has befallen him?

The Letter to the Hebrews offers another facet to consider. “In the days when He [Jesus] was in the flesh, He offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the One who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, He learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him, declared by God high priest according to the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 5:7-10).” In His humanity, Jesus lives life always attentive to His Father’s Word. He does not list to another (cf Genesis 3) and certainly dialogues with no one who will derail the Mission He has received from His Father. In His ‘testing,’ Jesus lives in way the Father intended ‘from the beginning.’

The Lenten journey is a journey with Jesus to oneness and wholeness, realizing that each of us has abused many of the elements of creation and in so doing have separated ourselves in varying degrees from our Father’s love. We learn from the catechumens and candidates, many who will be ‘elected’ by the local Bishop in dioceses throughout the world during these early days of Lent. They have listened attentively to The Word that has brought oneness and wholeness to them. They have struggled to separate themselves from elements of the world that preclude a loving relationship with the Divine Persons they will meet in Baptism at the Easter Vigil. For those already baptized, we join in loving solidarity with them – knowing sadly that we have permitted separation from our First Love to infect our very beings with promises for false hopes and joys. With the Word of God and the guarantee of Divine Love, may Lent be the joyful season of Grace that plunges each into deeper union with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

ORDINARY TIME Week 5: Tuesday

“Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of the whole assembly of Israel, and stretching forth his hands toward heaven...” (1 Kings 8:22.)

Saint Ephrem the Syrian offers the following insight on these verses from today’s First Reading:

“Now notice that Solomon did not only pray for his people but also for the foreigners and the strangers who distrusted the nation of Israel and were often hostile to it, so that the son of David might show the God of David to everyone in general, by praying for his enemies and by speaking ahead of time for us those future words: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”” (On the First Book of Kings, 8.)

Collect

Keep Your family safe, O Lord,
with unfailing care,
that, relying solely
on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always
by Your protection.
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

ORDINARY TIME Week 5: Monday

“Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the princes in the ancestral houses of the Israelites. They came to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the LORD’S covenant from the city of David (which is Zion).” (1 Kings 8:1.)

Saint Ephrem the Syrian offers the following insight on these verses from today’s First Reading:

“The two weeks [of festivity] and the two solemn celebrations were accomplished by the people of the Lord with the greatest joy. The former prefigured the festivals of our church, which Christ began with the mystical dedication of his temple and the transferring of the flesh which he had assumed, to heaven; the latter foreshadowed the last day, the greatest of all solemn days, that will dawn for all saints after the resurrection of the flesh. And the distribution of the ministries and offices in the heavenly and everlasting temple will follow that day.” (On the First Book of Kings, 8.)

Collect

Keep Your family safe, O Lord,
with unfailing care,
that, relying solely
on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always
by Your protection.
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